How to remove moles from your garden
Posted by Fiona Nevile in General care | 46 comments
I always feel a bit sad when I find a dead mole in the garden. With its soft velvet coat and long sensitive nose, the mole seems such a small loveable creature. The Min Pins catch them and then toss them aside for their human pet to collect. Clearly they are not as appetising as the guinea pig that they killed in the garden and carried into the house for an impromptu bacchanal on a pretty pale yellow button backed chair. But that’s another story.
Occasionally we get an active mole in the garden. They can be a real pest, especially if they are in the kitchen garden. Years ago, when I lived here with just one elderly Min Pin, I engaged the services of a mole catcher with good results. I was under the impression that trapping moles is a skilled countryman’s pursuit.
I am working locally at the moment in a lovely house set in a large garden bursting with wildlife, including an adventurous mole. My clients are busy people with schedules that do not include scratching around in the garden. So I was amazed when the lady of the house pulled on a smart pair of Wellingtons and announced:
“You probably won’t approve but I’m going out to kill the mole.”
Disapprove? Not wanting to get my hands dirty, I had hired an assassin in the past.
Moles do not spread disease like rats but they can wreck a lawn in a few days. Left undisturbed, the mole bongo drums must throb because coach loads soon arrive and you open your door to more hills than the Himalayas.
I watched her stalk across the lawn wearing a pair of marigolds and holding a mole trap.
When she returned she was instantly interrogated. Had she caught a mole in the past?
“Well, yes.”
I was impressed.
She sat down and explained. Moles have a finely tuned sense of smell. Basically the secret is to always wear gloves when handling a trap. Wipe a new trap and put it in the garden to get rid of all human smells. After a couple of days you can set it.
To do this you need to locate the underground run between a couple of molehills. This is easily done using a bamboo cane if the ground is soft. Then, using a slim trowel or ultra fat dibber, make a hole into the run and place the trap. The general idea is that the mole will tootle along the tunnel and into the trap. Within seconds the mole will be investigating that great mole hill in the sky.
The mole in question is clearly a relation of Einstein. She has not been caught. She spotted the trap and turned around sharpish. She is now tunnelling across the paddocks beyond the garden perimeter. The perfect outcome for those who love and those who loathe moles everywhere.
Tricks and tips:
- Mole claw traps are inexpensive. If you cannot buy them locally, scissor type mole traps
are available here. - I was advised in the past that old fashioned moth balls dropped into the runs deter moles. A reader has emailed me from New Jersey to say that it’s a bad idea to put mothballs in the soil as they kill beneficial microorganisms and earthworms.
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Help!!
My garden is over run with moles!
The landlord called in a ‘specialist’, who has put several mole traps down, guess what? They are multiplying by the minute aaarrrrghh!!
Any advice..
Dont make me beg!!!!!
Kind Regards
Emma
Hi Al Kalar
Thanks for your advice. Much appreciated.
The problem with repellents is that your mole retreats to your neighbor’s yard (and he will not love you for it). Then he has to use a repellent to send the little beggar back to your yard. Whereupon you have to do it again. And so on.
There is no substitute for a dead body. Anything else is just sharing the misery. And if you send the pest to my yard, shame on you!
Hi Michelle
Your grandfather’s method sounds perfect. Burying the gloves and the traps in the hay stack to remove the trace of human scent.
If we have a mole problem again, I’ll look at the option of repellents. Thank you.
Last year we had a few in the kitchen garden borders and the Min Pins caught them all within a few days.
Hi Fiona,
Reading this reminded me of my Grandfather’s method for catching moles. He would take his gloves as well as his mole traps out and bury them in a hay stack for a few days to remove the human scent from them, and then set the traps.
If you are like me and are squimish about killing them, I recomend one of the mole repelents that you spray on your lawn. They usually have a castor oil base, and the point of them is that the castor oil is absorbed into the food source that they are after (grubs, worms, etc.) and it makes them taste bad to the mole.
Also following this logic, you may want to check you lawn for bug infestations. After all, they are just going where the food is.
Hi Bryan
That’s a great tip, putting the flower pot over the trap, to darken the run. I’ll try that next time. Thanks.
do not use moth balls they are useless the moles will earth them up.sonic units are no good unless the sub soil is perfect to the specification of the unit!i have tried one, the moles crawl past it!the only way is to set traps. set them in the mole tunnel run,at the base of the run,and cover gently with the top layer of grass earthed up. then cover over with a flower pot with a brick on top to stop it blowing over, also this helps to darken the run with the trap in. check first thing in the morning lunch time and early evening. you will catch the little suckers be patient!.
Having read your interesting bit about catching moles – I thought you readers may like to know of a new website which helps those with a Mole problem in garden, smallholding or paddock find a TRADITIONAL Molecatcher in their area. Not always easy these days.
www.britishmolecatchers.co.uk
Kind regards
Webmaster for British Traditional Molecatchers Register.
Danny and I had heard about groundhogs. Well the famous one (Groundhog Day). This morning we discussed them:
F “Are they real? Did you see groundhogs cavorting when you were living in California?”
D “I don’t think I did…Why don’t you look them up.” Danny was enjoying his toast and homemade Seville orange marmalade and didn’t want to be proactive.
I fired up the laptop and checked Wikopedia. Groundhogs are real and big – in comparison to a mole. A sort of beaver/giant rat cross. Moles don’t do so much damage. They don’t eat vegetation. Groundhogs look as if they could eat my mother if we pegged her out on the lawn.
Moles are a pest when they forage beneath a lawn. The British tend to get worked up about their patch. We don’t, as our lawn is not flat. It is more like a seascape that has been cleverly turfed. I only worry about it when it’s full of large holes (Inca, the baby Min Pin hunting for wildlife – she is similar in size to a groundhog, just has longer legs. If we had them in the UK they would be definitely be hunted and you might be reading groundhog recipes rather than tis comment). Then it’s not the look of our lawn that worries me, it’s the possible litigation when an adventurous visitor stumbles during an expedition in the garden. We do provide crampons and full insurance cover from an Independent Financial Min Pin advisor (IFMP) but you never know.
I have been bemoaning our resident groundhog for years since he’s always eating whatever I plant (and I’m a terrible gardener, so it’s never much to start with). The kids liked to watch him from the kitchen window. But he was hit by a car a few weeks ago (not mine, I swear). I felt really bad, but now at least my garden will have a fighting chance.
Moles look a lot more destructive.