WITH THE WARMING temperatures and arrival of June, many creatures are visiting your yard and garden.
Just the other day, my cat Rogue brought me two young moles (Good kitty!) and in the last week new mole mounds are appearing in three gardens I tend.
So many of you have made a mountain out of a mole hill because of their inconvenience, hazardous effect, visually poor aesthetics and, of course, yard and garden damage.
With their digging, the unlevel paths can ruin knees and hips so, “What can I do?”
Moles
Here is the main problem: A male mole is a boar, while a female mole is a sow. A group of moles is referred to as a labour. So, when moles mate and have kids, they instantly are a labour, and their labor of love is digging, digging, digging.
It is their constant digging that earns them the condemnation of gardeners.
Moles are insectivores, living and eating worms, grubs, various larvae and bugs. Moles do not eat your plants!
The voles and mice that occupy the tunnels and use them as extensive interstate highways, below ground and out of sight of predators, to safely go around and eat your entire yards plants.
Enablers
Those guys eat your plants; moles are just enablers. And enable they do!
Moles breed in late winter or early spring, once a year and have four to six young who will then, in four weeks, join a labor movement to re-excavate the area.
Moles make a den and then construct chambers connected by deep tunnels, with an extensive surface tunnel system, used for feeding and trying to locate food.
Many times, the shallow hunting tunnels are only used once or twice as the prey has been found and eaten (or not). A hollowed-out, old mole tunnel is not a conducive habitat for future prey to live or breathe in.
So the mole is always on the move, digging up your area, pushing up soil and, in the case of perennials, annuals or ornamental beds, working or killing plants because of the huge air pocket around the roots, which is the moles tunnel system.
Now, no one is going to like the next part, but moles can actually be good, despite the serious hip damage someone could or has suffered.
Moles actually eat many bad insects, especially their larvae. In fact, a common (but very poor) control suggestion is to kill the grubs in your lawn, which are moles’ favorite d’oeuvres.
Killing grubs will kill many bugs both good and bad, and moles will just move on and eat more earthworms.
Generally, chemical insecticides greatly harm soil fertility and tilth by killing very beneficial fungi and microbes. The fact is that moles are extremely beneficial to good soil profiles, especially in areas like the Olympic Peninsula with our very nutrient-poor, rocky, gravel and sandy soils. Moles’ tunneling activities blend good surface topsoil with poor subsoils, greatly improving overall soil quality.
Good potting soil
I always suggest that a perfect way to get good potting soil is to put peat moss with a little perlite and vermiculite into a wheelbarrow and then every day or two, scrape up the new, finely hand-sifted (or paw-sifted) topsoil, which is the molehill, and mix it in with other ingredients for magnificent potting soil!
Removal
That said, moles eat and tunnel day and night, to 100 feet away from their den and then all directions.
Flooding living areas at breeding time can be an effective means of control for moles.
Any of these thumping, bumping, electronic gadgets have all failed miserably in independent tests, so if this appeals to you, send your money to me, Andrew T. May. I will send you a CD of me singing my greatest collection of runaway mole songs, including my hit favorite, “Rollin’ Rollin’ Mole-in.”
Poisoned bait is an old standby. Again, you need to carefully consider what other creatures you might be destroying in the process.
Numerous internal traps or those that thrust downward into the tunnel are most effective, but be careful when handling them. Moles go by scent, so use latex gloves and only wash with hot water.
Gum is useless, an old wives’ tale, because moles are insectivores.
So choose well how to deal with these trespassers, and … stay well all!
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Andrew May is a freelance writer and ornamental horticulturist who dreams of having Clallam and Jefferson counties nationally recognized as “Flower Peninsula USA.” Send him questions c/o Peninsula Daily News, P.O. Box 1330, Port Angeles, WA 98362, or email news@peninsuladailynews.com (subject line: Andrew May).
