Moles

[bamachick73]

Hello, I'm new here and have no idea what to do about my mole problem. We have a 1 acre back yard and over the WINTER the moles have taken over. There are hundreds of tunnels. In January we put poison pellets down the twenty holes we had, and I think there was some kind of aphrodisiac in them because now there are hundreds of tunnels.

All we have

Comments

[ayse]

I don't like poisons in a lawn. I think you're right to be concerned about them around your dogs; if yours are anything like mine you can't keep anything out of their mouths. Besides, poison seems to make them abandon tunnels and make new ones. Better to get them to move their tunnels lower into the soil where you never have to even know they are there.

The best cure for moles in a yard is to do things to encourage deeper root growth in your lawn. The moles are eating bugs and so forth in the root layer, and will go further down (and thus cause less damage) if the roots are deeper. Mole damage is usually a sign of a lawn that has shallow roots. Moles don't want to be up at the top of the soil making visible trails, but if that's where the food is, that's where they will be.

So cutting your grass higher, feeding the roots with organic material (a couple of top-dressings with compost per season), watering less often but deeper, aerating the soil if you have clay (doesn't work if you have sand like I do), not using fertilizers that will encourage fast but shallow growth. This will also help repair the damage to the lawn.

[bamachick73]

Ah interesting. Thanks. Yes the husband tends to cut the grass very low, as low as he can. We have a mud-pit back there after a rain, no sand thankfully. Thanks again.