November 25, 2007

Holey Moley!

Holes and Moles, they seem to rhyme pretty good, dont you think? Holes and moles, also closely associate with each other because moles make holes and that is what they do basically, they tunnel underneath peoples yards, eat flower bulbs, and destroy landscaping lawns.

For all those who garden in their yard a lot, you are probably familiar or heard about moles. They are one of the gardeners worst nightmares. Moles love to be around beautiful gardens and lawns just like people do. But the problem about moles is that they dont treat the yards and lawns like gardeners do. For moles, flower bulbs is like a feeding freenzie, a playground full of free meals.



Moles are like ants, they tunnel in the ground, but ants are small creatures while moles are like rats, they are big, that is why they have more devastating effects in the gardens and lawns than tunneling ants. You cannot really see the tunnels they create but you can tell that they are tunneling below because part of your lawn and garden will have bulky and soft continues curves all around, and if you water these tunneled areas, these tunnels collapses and causing uneven and tiny canal-looking spots. And for meals, they love to eat flower bulbs specially tulips.

I never seen an actual mole, but i can see signs that they are positively present in a garden and/or lawn. Moles are hard to catch and get rid of, but there are some ways control them:

Mole Traps. You can buy mole traps in most gardening and home improvement stores. Most mole traps are mechanically design to fit in one of their tunnels and when the mole use the same tunnel again, they got trapped and clipped. Mole trap is not not our prefered method of hunting moles and keeping them out of our yard and lawns because having to deal with a dead moles body is quite unpleasant and eeky, and sometimes it wont work because moles do not always use the same tunnel again, they usually just make new tunnels.

Poison Foods. Get them to come to the meal, is the key. Attract the mole by using a poison foods that are design to attract moles and poison them, which you can usually buy in gardening and home improvement store as well. A lot of times you can just place them in their tunnel and get them to come back or place them where they are most frequent. Im sure there is a detailed instructions that will be included with the food poisoning product on how to apply them safely. We never apply this product in our yard because we have dogs. I would not recommend this in your yard to catch and get rid of moles if you have pets like cats and dogs because they might attracted to it as well and try to eat it. So better safe than sorry, if you have pets in the yard, this is not the best option for you.

Car Exhaust Suffocation. There are some specially designed hose/pipe for sale that you can use to mount in your car exhaust pipe and place the other end of the hose/pipe in one of the mole tunnel. It is designed to have the car exhaust blown to the mole tunnel and kill the mole with suffocation. This method is probably safer if you have pets in the yard, but might be quite complicated to use because you have to attach the device to your car and all. How to apply it should be included with the product when you purchase itm but I cannot give detail instruction here because we never used this method before.

Chicken Wires. Moles are specially attracted to flower bulbs because it is one of their favorite meals. So if you have flower gardens with bulbs, chances are moles will be tunneling underneath and go towards such garden. Chicken wire application method might work best if you are just planning and starting your garden, before any plants are planted in it. The chicken wire method is done by placing a chicken wire pool about a foot or two deep in your garden area to be, fill it with dirt and plant the flowers above it. This way, when the mole tunnel in your yard, the mole will be stopped outside where the chicken wires are and cannot access the bulbs planted inside the chicken wires. The problem with this process is that moles can start a tunel above your garden and get trap inside the chicken wires with all the bulbs in it. And the chicken wire method doesnt really eliminate the mole, it only diverts their tunneling flow hopefully.

Whichever method you choose, good luck! It is quite a challenge catching those holey moley! Feel free to leave your comments about this post as well.

All Rights Reserved. Written by JAZEVOX.

6 comments:

waliz said...

this moles and the holes sure gives u a lot of headache huh? i've never seen a mole before but if i see them i am sure give them a chase...hehehe

Jazevox said...

yeah, they tear our lawn a lot, and u can see the damage really good when its freshly mowed

Raquel said...

I haven't seen and no idea of mole yet but I know one of their characteristics is they love to make a hole. Thank you for this information Jaze, its very well said.

I hope by using poison foods would not hurt the garden or any plants in the garden.

Jazevox said...

i never seen a mole too, but they leave (been there) marks all over in our lawn specially

well thought about how the mole poison foods could possibly kill the plants...i hope the manufacturer thought of that when they made those!

Marie said...

friend, good rhyme there sa title huh...anyway, i am not also familiar with that but upon reading your entry i am sure that I will hate it when I see it considering it leave holes...

Jazevox said...

hi marie, thanks for reading this post :-) if you have a lawn or garden, you are lucky if you dont have moles, i think they do more harm than good

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