MOLES!

*bleep* *bleepin* moles!

I agree!!!!!

I don't have moles - they eat underground bugs and worms. I have voles! They eat underground, carrots, radishes, lily bulbs, daylily roots, shrubbrey roots, andthing they can sink their teeth into.
Voles usually take over mole tunnels.

I bought a plastic jar of Mole and gopher poison at the hardware store. It cost about 8.99 for about 2 cups. You put a teaspoonful down each hole you find using a long handled spoon - deep in the tunnel. I

I used about half of the container this spring but have seen no more vole holes! Course that didn't replace my tulip bulbs.

Gosh, I REALLY do appreciate this info. Got errands tomorrow, and I'm going to look for some of that stuff!

We've tried the poison pellets and traps with very little luck.
My husband mostly trys to get them with the shovel when he happens upon one.

I could never get any in traps either. This vole poison looks like chicken scratch feed, almost. I was careful to put it down in the holes so the birds couldn't get it.

Pour a handful of sharp gravel over each bulb after
planting, then fill in the soil.

Have you guys noticed if you have a grubworm problem by chance? I had a serious mole problem several years ago then late that summer I had big patches of grass that I could pull up like pieces of sod except the roots were totally gone! To make a long story short...Get rid of grubworms(which are 1 of the moles favorite treats) and the moles just up and left.
I had spent over 2 years trying everything under the sun trying to kill them and run them off. Before getting rid of the grubs, my best luck was using huge smoke bombs and evidently killed them in their tunnels as I never saw them come out. My buddy worked for a commercial HVAC company and they used these monster smoke bombs for leak testing ductwork. Man alive...We put 3 of them in the bigger mounds and burried them to keep smoke from coming out. LMBO I had smoke spewing from all over my yard and snakes and mice running from the other holes like crazy! I had no idea how many critter's shared moles tunnels! the mole problem was solved for the rest of that 1 season if I recall correctly but they were back hard and heavy the next spring.
Anyhow, the grubworms became a bigger problem than the moles were as far as killing turf so I went after them with every chemical known to man. The best was using diazanon in a series of 3-4 applications 3 weeks apart but it was short term relief too.So I heard about using beneficial bugs for killing the grubs at www.planetnatural.com
I used milky spores and scanmask beneficial nematodes and I'm very hard pressed to find even 1 grub when tilling or digging anywhere in the yard. The best part about using the beneficial bugs is several fold. They never die off and stay forever(forever=11 years as of now and still going strong) just multiplying like mad. These lil bugger's actually infest the insides of the grubs and take over their bodies turning them into nurseries that end up releasing millions more of the grub killing machines. The instructions say that when the milky spores no longer have grubs to eat, they go dormant and hang out until they find another host grubworm of anykind to infest and kill. After all these years, they have spread into my nieghbor's yards and has taken care of their grubworm problems aswell. Another major bonus is I hardly have any junebugs around anymore either as these grubs are junebug larvae, I had no idea. The scan mask also kills over 200 other pests such as flea larvae and many other garden pests. I just can't say enough about these 2 products and I should be getting in on some of the profit since I preach about how well these products work.
Now, anytime I find any kind of garden pest, I go to planetnatural.com before I go looking for a chemical remedy. They have yet to let me down. Now just for the heck of it, we buy 1 of their "variety packs" of beneficial insects every spring so we can hatch out praying mantis and release them in an effort to re build their numbers in nature as we rarely find them like the old days.
Take a look at their website even if your not interesed in buying as its very informative and educational.
Goodluck! JD

JD Thanks for all that info. I will cehck out that website.
We have so much lawn area that we couldn't afford to kill the grubs but we have to do something!
I'm curious though...don't moles eat earthworms and does the grub killer kill off the earthworms? We have alot of earthworms.

Glad you mentioned voles, se_eds! I've got those blasted creatures rummaging in my garden, and everytime I complain about them, my listener says, "'Voles? Don't you mean 'moles?'" NO, I mean bloody VOLES! =0

And my cat won't do anything to help me out either. Useless feline. >=/

don't know if this will help with voles, but just found this:
MOLE PLANTS: (castor bean plant) Deter moles and mice if planted here and there throughout the garden. Drop a seed of this in mole runs to drive them away. This is a poisonous plant.

from: http://www.ghorganics.com/page2.html

That is great info about getting rid of grubs naturally!

Tamarafaye - you are right, castor bean seeds are highly poisonous. If the voles eat them they will die. Be especially careful around kids as the seeds are rather large and little children might want to put one in their mouth to feel or taste.

Doesn't Ricin - the spy poison - come from the castor bean plant?

hmmm, dunno, don't have any plants. Someone sent me seeds, but I didn't plant them. Have enough poisoness things to teach my kids about LOL

As i have gotten rid of bermuda grass, I am not having a mole/vole problem.

Just passing along good info as I come across it. Goodness knows my brain can't absorb it all!

Maybe the Bermuda grass harbors the voles. Useful information - thanks.