Mr Mole Has Been Visiting

[Oolalula]

My Mum and I share an allotment - last time she was there, Mr (or could be Mrs) Mole made a little mound on the path and promptly disappeared.

I've been down since and not seen it back. However, Mum went down a couple of days ago, and I got a phonecall in the evening. Apparently whilst she'd been there, Mr Mole had done a bit of tunnelling straight through the recently planted onion sets, up through the potatoes and out onto the other side.

He seems to like our allotment the best, he doesn't go near anyone else's. Someone suggested that they liked recently manured ground (worms perhaps?) but we haven't manured ours this year. Next door have though, but he hasn't been over there.

As much as I think moles are fantastic little critters, I'm not too keen on him wading through my veg. No harm done really, just our rows won't be quite as straight as they once were.

Any ideas of how I can discourage him from making another visit? Mum said something about putting bottles in the ground so that the wind (and it's a veritable wind tunnel down there) reverberates into the ground. We don't use bait or traps - no kill policy here!

[Alice]

If you don't want to kill them Oolalula then just learn to love them and what they do to your veg beds. Have a look at what Defra says on the subject (type Defra in Google). It's very interesting. Seems they might just go away when they're ready. Maybe you just have to stick it out for a few years.

[snuffer]

Moles

I sometimes have problems with moles on the lawn. One way of discouraging them that seems to work for me is, dig down under the mole hill until you locate the tunnel,then empty the contents of the cat litter tray down the hole and into the tunnel. I assume that moles link the smell to that of a predator and so vacate the area. Obviously this does not harm the mole and so after a time he does return but it can be several months before a new mole hill appears on the lawn. I have also used the pelleted chicken manure in the same way and this also seems to work. (Although I don't imagine many moles have come across a predatory chicken).

Perhaps you don't like the idea of burying cat litter in amongst the veg but the chicken manure idea might be worth a try.

[jacob marley]

Go to the fair and buy some of them windmills that the kid's carry about proudly and push them in the ground .
the vibrations seem to deter the moles away good luck jacob