Mole - Mania

Mole-Mania is the feeling a gardener experiences when he opens the curtains in the morning and looks at his mole heap infested lawn. It is that helpless feeling that we are a victim of an act of nature. Could we blame those who voted for a measure to make killing moles illegal? In the meantime we have to deal with the destruction of a perfect looking lawn!

Let’s take a closer look. The mole is no relative of rodents as most people believe, they are actually a part of the order of insectivora, which includes shrews and bats. You probably already noticed that moles do not hibernate. There is a mystic quality to moles since we do not know too much about their social lives. However, the females have figured out something: they do not dig the tunnels and make the hills, they will make the males do that. The females produce a litter of 2 to 5 baby moles every spring and these will produce a litter the following year. Moles eat insects, earthworms, snails, slugs and small amounts of vegetative material. They may eat their own weight every day and work 24 hours to create up to 150 feet of tunnel in one day. Moles have 44 teeth, which is the largest number of teeth of all the terrestrial mammals.

Now, for the main question: how do you deal with Mole-Mania? First: forget about traps, it is still illegal. Second: try some of the home remedies which, according to most experts, do not really work. Try Ed Hume’s proven mole formula: ¼ cup castor oil, 2 TBS of liquid soap, mix these two ingredients together, then add 6 TBS of water. Blend again. Store this in a closed container until needed. When ready to use, mix 2 TBS with 1 gallon of water. Pour it over the entire problem area, not just into the holes. Another local solution: Uncle Ian’s mole repellant, based on Chili powder pepper ingredients and locally produced in the Maple Valley. Third: you can trap a mole live by placing a 10-12” deep can by 7 “ diameter in the ground with the top of the can level with the bottom of the run.

Lastly ‘Holy Moly’ has nothing to do with Mole-mania. ‘Holy Moly’ is an exclamation of excitement referring to the old belief that Alliums and Garlic (botanical name: Allium moly) had magical powers!