Uncovered the raised beds today and every one of them has mole tunnels, which is great, because that means I have good fertile soil and lots of worms to attract them there. That means I got free aeration of my soil and fertilizer, so I am excited about that. Moles are only a problem if they are ripping up your landscaped anal retentive grass, and I don’t give a shit about grass. Grass is stupid and the dumbest thing to have in your yard and I am super close to just putting in the walkway and then mulching the rest of the yard and making everything either edible, a wildflower or perennial. Not like I am doing anything out there other than hat and the dogs will still have a place to shit.
Of course Steve will be a problem for the moles, but I suppose those are risks the moles have already assessed.
Also I think moles are cute.
dr. luba
I don’t have landscaped anal retentive grass, more of a meadow, but the moles destroy it with their tunnels and make it dangerous to walk on the lawn. Twisting an ankle is not fun as you get older.
kindness
My dogs go after moles more than my cats. They don’t last long if they tunnel under the fenceline.
NotMax
Only product left unsmoked at Woodstock.
:)
M. Bouffant
“Mole Tunnels” is the band name or song/album title of the wk.
JoyceH
Just today I was looking at my lawn and realizing that very little out there is actually grass. Not sure what the other stuff is, but oh well, it’s green, and it looks fine when it’s mowed, so I’m not going to worry about it.
mrmoshpotato
Now YouTube is showing me a hydroponic system ad.
R-Jud
A friend converted her grass lawn to a creeping chamomile (a cultivar that doesn’t flower; Treneague, I think?) a couple years back and it is really lovely. She has to weed it now and then but otherwise the maintenance is minimal.
satby
Lots of moles can also be a sign of grubs, mostly Japanese beetle grubs. Which you don’t want. Besides, why would you want to encourage anything that eats earthworms? I spread nematodes around with a sprayer both for grubs and flea larva. Gets the grubs, not the earthworms; then I run the moles off with an annoying but harmless to them repellent based on castor oil.
Wvng
Moles are, sadly,a problem in gardens because their tunnels keep disturbing roots and dry them out. I am constantly fighting moles to keep them from killing my plants. Put hardware cloth under one of my raised beds last month.
NotMax
“Likewise me, Morocco Mole.”
:)
lowtechcyclist
I understand the attitude about grass, but you can play Frisbee or croquet or badminton on grass. (Not everyone is a misanthrope, even an introvert like me enjoys the occasional opportunity to socialize.) Grass has roots that hold the ground in place so you can do these things. And we do these things in my yard.
Around where I live in southern MD, the weeds are fine for most of the year, but they die back in the winter, right down to the roots. If they’ve choked out too much of the grass, your yard becomes a sea of mud in the winter. Grass does the job, other stuff not so much.
BUT the task of maintaining a lawn is one I can’t get into. I know if I got one of those Scott’s four-step systems to take care of your lawn, I’d forget to do Step 2 and remember only after the seasons had changed. I don’t do chemicals. I just spread some annual seed a couple times a year, mow, rake/blow the leaves off in the fall, and that’s it. Seems to work OK.
MelissaM
Moles can be an issue with your veggies, too.
sab
@R-Jud: What climate range was this?
wetzel
My neighbor had that philosophy. He was an ecology teacher. The neighborhood thought he was sorry.
sab
@JoyceH: Sounds like my lawn. Lots of the flat weeds are much less sensitive to summer drought than actual grass. If it is short and green in the summer I am fine with it.
sab
My ramps survived last years window cleaner stompage! Not going to harvest any this year to encourage their survival, but yay!
Another Scott
We don’t have moles, we have chipmunks. Which Ellie hates, so she, all 47 pounds of her, tries to catch by digging after them. Big holes in the backyard. :-(
Foxes go after ground varmints, also too.
I think that you need to cut out the middleman. Get some jaguars. I’m sure that they would have a great time hanging out in the willow.
Cheers,
Scott.
Thor Heyerdahl
Found a 1986 Canadian comedy sketch troupe “4 on the Floor” video (forward to 6:36) with Marvin the star-nosed mole at a used car lot
https://youtu.be/uuzApcUnMhs
TaMara
@Another Scott: I’m on board with jaguars.
I killed most of my front yard two years ago and couldn’t be happier. We still have our backyard grass, which I overseeded with two kinds of clover, it cuts way back on the watering and stands up to the Danes. And it’s great for the bees and worms.
Aurona
Congratulations! You are on your way to having a 70-30 yard! Taking out the lawn aids in that pursuit. The reason? 70% native plants 30% non-natives may keep your native birds & insects staying in your yard throughout the year (think of the sleep over insects that are ready to go for the spring season). That’s the percentage they gave me in the Pacific Northwest, your area may be different, but the idea of going native to give birds, butterflies a route through your town to find where the native plants and edibles are is a long time coming. Example: I took out an old weeping cherry tree (non-native) and will replace with Evergreen huckleberry, and our small native maple that works well in a yard, also no grass lawn, only native ‘stepables’, and my small dogs do fine (Pug/JackRussell, Chi/RatTerrier). Also I use only electric trimmers/no gas polluters. Best to you on your new adventure.
TheOtherHank
Maybe the moles will attract crows. And squirrels.
Fingers crossed…
xjmuellerlurks
I like your front yard idea. Put in a couple of biggish shrubs, like butterfly bushes (attracts pollinators), and some smaller bordering ones, and fill the rest with flowers. We unintentionally planted a butterfly bush under a leaky gutter and it got to be ten feet tall and as large around – they like water. We’d cut that sucker back in late fall, and the next year it was just as big again. The one in our front yard now is only about six feet tall. Unwanted stuff will grow up through the mulch, but evergreen or other “acidic” type plants will help keep them down. Some of the unwanted stuff in our front yard is pretty, but a lot of it is just weird weedy things. Mulch does require some maintenance, but that’s better than mowing.
Damned at Random
Our mouser/moler outside kitty died a couple of years ago (she was 20-ish and toothless, so no surprise). We live outside town and figured eventually someone would dump a cat out here that we could recruit, but it hasn’t happened. This week, we took the car in for the second time due to mouse issues, and coincidentally, some friends discovered a semi-feral and 2 small kittens in their carport. Long story short, Mama and babies were relocated to our yard, the theory being she wouldn’t take the babies far and would decide this is pretty good territory. By the time we got back from the doctor, the transport crate was empty and food gone. We still haven’t seen the new cat, but a fox was barking outside the shed last night, so we figure that is where she moved. Right now, we are providing food and water and trying not to freak her out.
Fingers crossed. I have no argument with moles, but the mice are getting expensive.
Damned at Random
@TaMara:
I’m a big fan of clover and dandelions. Dandelion greens are delicious cooked up with spinach and those bright flowers are so cheerful.
Death to monocultures
dr. luba
@Another Scott: Chipmunks dig tunnels which fill with water when it rains. when they infested the area around my house, my basement began to leak whenever there was rain. Not good for the rugs of woodwork.
I had to cut down the population every few years until their natural predators returned–a family of red tail hawks nesting in our neighborhood. Nature is back in balance, and my basement is dry.
Humdog
I do not like mole mound soil in my garden because it is so fine it can settle too firmly. It kills the tilth of your soil. In the 22 years at this location and nine dogs over the same time period I only had one who could catch moles regularly. The other dogs have instead exploded the mole paths to make big holes. Just yesterday one dog had a full ring around her head of dirt/mud from sticking it into a dug-into mole trail.
StringOnAStick
My mission to get rid of ALL lawn here at our new home is proceeding apace. I got all the in-line drip emitter 1/2″ tubing installed in all the backyard beds last week, so I’m ready when my big order of water wise perennials arrives in 2-3 weeks. I just need to remove another 10 sq ft of sod, then put down decomposed granite as the pathway material. It has been over a year of hard manual labor but it already looks so much better!
The front yard is going to be done by the local pro native plant landscaper, but like every other business in this booming town, it is hard to get commitment. The woman I thought I’d hired to add an irrigation zone appears to be ghosting me, which means there may be no veggie garden this year. I wish they’d at least respond to my emails or calls with something, even a “no” so I can move on to some other company.
dyspeptic
As a certified lawn murderer, killing grass without chemicals does takes some doing. My advice is to take cardboard from Costco, Amazon, whatever and put it over the grass then mulch or soil on top of that. This season it will be a little dull looking but next year you aren’t fighting the grass that wants to come back. And the dead roots, the broken down cardboard and dirt/mulch can be tilled together and made ready for planting.