ASK DIARMUID

QPlease can you advise me on a problem I have – eelworms.

I wanted a raised bed for more delicate plants so I lined a wooden frame with plastic and filled it with garden soil, potting compost and compost from a rotted heap.

The plants began to suffer, then I saw a mole had got into the frame, so I dug the soil out to put wire mesh at the bottom, but found the soil was full of eelworms.

The sun was hot so I kept turning the soil to expose more eelworms. After a day there was no sign of them.

Where would they have gone? Would the soil be safe to use again? Does anything kill eelworms? I hope you can tell me what to do!

ASheila

Soil is teeming with bacteria, fungi and worms, and most are harmless or beneficial to soil health. There are a couple of eelworms that cause damage, particularly ones that target potatoes, tomatoes and chrysanthemums. So I can’t say for sure that the eelworms you found were harmful. There are no chemicals available to gardeners to kill eelworms.

It sounds like the raised bed was constructed with care. However, as it is raised and lined, its access to groundwater is going to be limited or non-existent. Did you ensure that you watered sufficiently and included drainage holes in the plastic?

It’s possible that the plants were suffering for other reasons such as over or under-watering, rather than the eelworms being the culprits.