Getting Rid of Moles

Have you ever noticed that the drug companies that do commercials on tv always have to end the advertisement with a "side effects of horrible maladies disclaimer" blurted out so fast as to hopefully escape your attention? It goes like this: (with video of grandma smiling and hugging her grandchildren) You need Beserkarette only once a day to make your life more meaningful! Then, comes some fast talking mumbling voice in background-don't take Beserkarette if you are allergic to it, can cause bloating, sore throat, internal bleeding, stroke, heart attack, liver disfunction and psychotic episodes that make you think you can jump off tall buildings without getting hurt. Which brings up another question. How would you know if you are allergic to something unless you try it???

So where are we headed here? What does this have to do with plants? It's like this. Every artificial chemical amendment that you use, is a risk/reward issue. In other words, do the benefits that you or your plants receive from using an artificially made substance outweigh the potential side effects? If the disease is much worse than the cure, then it may be needed. If the cure is worse or equal to the risk from the disease, it is logical to pursue less toxic cures initially. We overuse artificial fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides to a point where we are killing our soil "goodness". Not saying that I don't occasionally use any of them in a pinch to fix an immediate problem that has to be fixed to save a dying plant, or to keep my lawn from sloughing off into the Gulf of Mexico. But for long-term building I only use them if all other efforts fail. For instance in my sandy soil I have a soil grub "problem". The grubs eat on the roots of my plants. Of course, this is not good for my plants, but by improving the soil to promote microbial growth, hopefully some of the microbes would help kill out the grubs. In the meantime, moles and voles in general just love the taste of the grubs. In the process they produce tunnels that collapse the sand enough to present a tripping break your ankle problem.

So not wanting to poison the moles with bait because we have farm cats that catch moles and at least chew on them a little before presenting them as a present to us at our back door to freak my wife out. I bought some mole repellent and spread it around. These repellents contain castor oil, which works ok. Moles apparently don't like the taste of castor oil flavored grubs. They mostly retreated into somebody else's yard. lol Problem solved for now!!! Nope. It seems we also have a horrible wild hog problem around here. They apparently just love the taste of castor oil flavored grubs. Suppose it keeps them regular? So, because the moles were mostly gone, the grubs just kept on making grub love and the hogs started getting an all you can eat feast at the expense of making worse holes than the moles ever could have hoped to make. So, as a last resort I broke down and treated the worst affected areas with chemical grub control. But the point is, I only used it where I had to use it as a last resort. Not all over my entire place and certainly not where most of my earthworms live or near my vegetable garden. Think about this before setting yourself up on a regular fertilizer and insecticide treatment program just because you can. In the short term, you may get instant green up gratification. But in the long term, you are most likely hurting your soil builders and your general surroundings. I'm not dissing the entire inorganic soil additive chemical industry, I believe they have their place in mass food production and for occasional application for our at home issues. However, half as much in your yard might work just as well. It saves you money and I believe your place just might like you for it. That's all for now. HAPPY GARDENING!