MOLES ...argh!

[dewdropsinwv]

Carol Dee they have not left. They are still tearing up the yard, just in another spot doing more damage. I hate those little critters.

 

[Carol Dee]

@dewdropsinwv I will scout the yard in the a.M. Keeping fingers crossed that I have them on the run!

 

[dewdropsinwv]

MontyJ used to do the coffee stomp method. Have some coffee wait to see the ground move and stomp on them.

 

[Carol Dee]

@dewdropsinwv we had a friend skilled in the Beer Stab method! He would park a lawn chair over the tunnel, set himself up with a cooler of beer and a spade. Along comes Mr./Mrs. mole and it was off with their heads! I do not have the patients.
I also think I may have lucked out! Moles seem to have moved on. I did not even get out the poison worms. I will save them in case they return. I used the grub killer up at the garden. I wonder if the castor oil/soap mix did the trick?

 

[Lavender2]

If it's been very dry they may have gone deeper to find food. Hopefully food was scarce or they got a belly ache and moved on.

I've trapped 4 this year, no more sign of them for about a month. But you should see the mounds in the yard across the road.

 

[Carol Dee]

I do hope they have moved on. It has been dry. Until we got an inch Sunday. I will continue to watch and hopefully get to them before they make a bigger mess of my yard than it already is.

 

[so lucky]

We have a lot of mole hills and runs in our yard. Last year my DH obsessed over them, anxiety spiking every time he saw a new one. I often would stomp them down in the morning and replace the sod before he would see them, just to keep him from having an anxiety attack.
When the chickens find them, they make a dust bath out of them, so that made the whole area look even worse.
This year, he is not nearly as anxious about them (other things have his attention right now) so the moles are having a field day, and so are the chickens.
In the spring, when the moles are making shallow runs, we are pretty good at using the "dispatch with shovel" method: You have to be able to recognize a fresh hill, and watch it for a couple minutes to see if they are working it right now. If so, walk softly back to the house to get your shovel.

Watch the ground movement to see which way they are working, and exactly where. If you can stomp down in back of them, and push the shovel down in front of them at the same time, you can pop them out of the ground in the shovel. (this works better with two people, in which case, you can each use a shovel) My DH got pretty accurate using a hatchet to chop them in the run. Very satisfying.

I think this works best in spring, or anytime the moles are working shallowly. In hot dry weather, when they go deep, and push up the huge mounds of dirt, I haven't found anything that works.

I read a blog by an organic gardener who said the moles do eat grubs, and aerate the soil. Just accept it and get on with your life, was his advice.

 

[curly_kate]

I was actually getting on here to ask the same question! I've been tolerating them in the yard, but they're tearing up my flower beds now. They perennials have weathered the turmoil, but the *&#^ creatures killed a bunch of annuals. I was going to move a bunch of flowers around this fall, but I'm worried the moles will take that as an invitation to a party. Anyone know when moles go dormant for the winter?

 

[Lavender2]

Moles are active year round, @curly_kate . I assume they go below our frozen solid ground in Winter and somehow manage to survive to dig again.

This site has some good pest ID and fun mole facts-
http://www.thegopherguy.com/pages/pestid.html

 

[Lavender2]

@so lucky, those huge mounds use to cause more damage than the surface tunnels in my gardens. That's why I start trapping the moment I see tunnels appear.

I usually have a pretty high tolerance for things, but several years ago my entire rock garden was transformed into dirt mountains in 2 days. Crazy what a puny rodent can accomplish.