I hesitate to appear as Mr. MacGregor, a grumpy gardener, wanting to get his hands around the necks of Flopsy and Mopsy. Be assured, I don’t want to whack a mole. However, an in-word today is nudge. How about nudging him or her out of my garden! For heaven’s sake, we have a nature reserve next door and, guess what, no moles there, not one. They seem to love gardens. Why? Is my garden a larder full of worms? Does the mole moonbathe on my patio at night in its moleskin trousers? Does it enjoy me mowing the grass? Whatever, grumpy gardeners, cats and dogs, do not frighten them away. Are there predators out there on the nature reserve that I don’t recognise? Predators that don’t use my garden. Garden moles 3 now creates a trilogy.

The invasion

I last wrote about moles a year ago. Since then, odd mounds of soil but nothing positive. Meanwhile, at least two neighbours have had numerous soil eruptions, like a rash of spots on a kid’s face. They have failed to get rid of them. I am not saying I smiled when I heard all this but it did strike me that I had won out. Then, in an entirely new quarter, a mound appears. No signs of how it reached that spot. It was like an eruption from a cave system. I welcomed it with infusion of male urine. The next day it pushed soil back up to block me off, it snubbed me. At least I now knew that it was in residence. Out in the fields there has been a mass of new mounds, but not in my garden.

Garden Moles 3

Yes, I could stab the ground with a fork, but I am not going to. The nudge will have to work. I tried ground chilli but that failed. I thought that urine would stink it out but now I am not so sure. Meanwhile, it is biting the head off my worms and putting them into its larder. The worms stay alive but unable to move. Do I have a duty of care for my worms? Indeed, are they my worms just because I own the garden? At the moment, I can see into the moles run. I use a trowel to remove the soil. It has had two smelly infusions and no reaction. Has it gone, or is it just sitting me out. We shall see who has the most patience!