Fighting Moles At Their Summer Cottage

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Karau-u-u-l

There were so many moles on my site that probably not a single square meter of cultivated land remained, where there were no underground passages and heaps of dug earth. The same is true for all neighbors. Spoiled plantings of strawberries and vegetables, disfigured flower beds and a lumpy lawn are all the result of the activities of this garden activist. The flowering plants of watermelons that died in the greenhouse became the limit of my patience. I have declared war on the moles.

To begin with, I read everything that came to hand about the life of moles. I must say that information about their lives and habits is rather scarce and heterogeneous. Yes, they do not eat plants, but they strip their roots. Yes, they eat many pests and their larvae, but they also eat earthworms. Moreover, they eat them in winter, spring, summer and autumn, during the day and especially with great appetite - at night.

When I saw a picture of a mole shelter with a ball of one hundred and fifty earthworms stored in it for the winter, it became clear that my war against moles was just. Because they destroy what I have carefully cultivated on my land for many years in order to increase its fertility - earthworms, and this is a form of sabotage.

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So - the war. I studied all the methods of struggle that were described in the literature, or that I heard about from friends and unfamiliar gardeners and neighbors. And I decided to try all these methods in practice.

First of all, I checked whether the mole really does not tolerate strong smells. She dug up all the holes and pushed into them bunches of blooming bird cherry, young, strong-smelling shoots of lovage, rags soaked in a mixture of used engine oil and kerosene. Did not help.

I read in the newspaper that if you put feces in the holes, then the moles certainly will not stand it and will leave the garden. I put a "treat" from the toilet in all the holes I had dug out and began to gloatfully wait for the result. No more than half a day passed, the moles began to work, as if nothing had happened.

I tried rotten fish heads first from fresh fish, and then from Atlantic herring of weak salting. Useless. Moles calmly bypassed all this, making new passages.

I had to resort to one more method, which was recommended to me as the most reliable in the world: to push calcium carbide into holes. When humidified, it emits gas with a terrible odor. The moles, they told me, handing the pieces of carbide, are terribly afraid of this smell and run away from it as fast as they can for at least a kilometer. They didn't run away. This means that their smells, even stunning ones, do not drive away.

I pierced the passages with a pitchfork, trampled them under my feet, pushed bunches of the most thorny branches of roses into their holes, so thorny that they could only be taken with pliers. But piles of fresh earth soon appeared in almost the same places.

Again I dug up some passages, dug glass jars along the path of the moles - with the throat flush with the mole road. Here, I think, a mole will run along its path and fall into the bank. No, it didn't fail. He covered the jar to the brim with earth and calmly ran back and forth. Mounds of land continued to appear in the garden in places where manure or humus was introduced into the soil and where earthworms lived in abundance.

Of course, all over the garden I put devices that were recently written about in one of the newspapers - plastic bottles with wings, put on stakes. They rotated easily from the slightest breeze and tapped on the stakes. The moles simply had to get scared and run away. It wasn't like that. Piles of earth appeared here and there, even near the stakes.

They gave me a head to cut off, which is the most reliable means - planting beans. I planted a bed of black beans, for greater reliability - in two rows. The mole dug his way under it and moved on. Another mound of earth soon appeared among the plantings of garlic. It turns out that he is not afraid of garlic either.

I dug a sheet of iron into the ground along the path of the mole. Soon he walked around it from the side. I dug in another - a wider sheet. He walked around it from below, deepening his course by more than half a meter.

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I had to go to the store to find out what scientists are offering us. Discovered chemicals - "Krotomet" and "Krotoboy". I bought both. I spread it over all the mole passages and waited for the result. The mole, of course, found the bait, but did not eat it. He simply pushed them to the surface of the earth. I cleared my hallways.

The cat Murka also took part in my struggle: she caught and brought a couple of young individuals. She put one on the pillow, and the second, the next day, in her slipper.

And then one very experienced gardener spoke on the radio, who said that all methods of dealing with a mole are useless, except for one - mechanical mole traps. I bought these same mechanical mole traps. On the same day, I put them on the path of the mole, two pieces each, directed in different directions. Whichever side the mole walked along its course, it would surely fall into a trap. The mole traps were fine-tuned: the slightest touch and they worked. And they really worked, but not a single mole got into them. Every day for a week, I put these mole traps in the same course, the mole ran along it every day, buried my mole traps with earth, walked around them and never got caught. But in the magazine I saw photographs of mole-catchers with animals caught in them.

Then I put on a few more pairs of mole traps, but the result was the same, i.e. none. It all ended with the fact that one day the mole got angry and pushed the mole traps to the surface of the earth. I just threw them out of the way. They prevented him from running freely around his underground state.

Some of the mole catchers were left in the passages before winter. In the spring they were found dug on the surface of the earth.

Now the moles were born and are growing kids. Each mother, as the mole experts write, has 5-6 babies. From about the beginning of July, their mass settlement will begin, which will last all summer. I have no doubt that mom and dad will teach their kids how not to get caught in banks and mole traps.