I am wanting to check my soil and see if it is alive with micros and earth worms and see if am making any progress with the compost teas etc. Some places I can see some earthworm signs or the little piles of dirt on top of the ground and some places that there is none.This is on a hundred acres in different hay meadows. How can I visually check for this? Right now it is cold outside and I am sure they are way down in the ground asleep. Seems like someone said to dig up a square foot and count the earthworms but what minimum temperature does it have to be and if there is not enough what can I do to increase the population? Thanks for any info.

Checking to see if there's life in your soil,the way I do it,is to dig about 2-4 inches under the sod and get some of the dirt and put it in or on a slide and put it under my micorscope.There's usually all kinds of critters in there.