No more voles - Mole Crickets!!

In 2006 I made a plea for an organic method of getting rid of voles. For anyone interested in a long story, the thread started at http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/p.php?pid=2555288 . In 2007 I updated our progress at http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/740278/ .

This year, having licked the vole problem, we now find that we have something that appears to be even more difficult to solve... Mole Crickets! Our local Cornell Extension agent says these are very rare in our area, but according to what we have found, it looks as if this could become a more wide-spread problem very quickly.

We were very disappointed this year, to find many small holes and find that our early vegetables were being eaten at the roots and dying. No voles were in our traps but one day we found a large dead bug that we identified as a Mole Cricket. I uploaded a photo to the Bug Forum at http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/848821/ , but thought it might generate more information in this forum. As seen in the photo, they have very large claws and the holes are about one inch wide.

On a daily basis we have now been digging up parts of the garden, removing about 10 crickets a day, and according to http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/lh039, they lay "pockets of about 25-60 eggs...Females may lay up to 5 clutches of eggs before dying" as seen in this photo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:MoleCricketLyd.png . For every one we find, I am sure there are 10 more, so digging is no solution. Apparently they fly once or twice a year, so all our netting and fencing will not keep them out.

Hopefully there is someone reading DG who can help, but maybe there is just no organic solution and we will have to give up our 20 x 30 vegetable garden for a few tomatoes grown in containers.

One way is to pour warm soapy solution over their nesting area..and as the crickets emerge, place them in a bucket of warm soapy solution. If you lived closer... I would send the boy pumpkin over... he would be delighted to round the dreaded pests up and fling them into the soapy water for you!

garden6 - We heard about a soap solution method at http://creatures.ifas.ufl.edu/orn/turf/pest_mole_crickets.htm . They say "1.5 oz of liquid dishwashing soap in 2 gal of water with a sprinkling can to 4 sq ft of turf," We did that but it produced no results, yet every time we dig we find more crickets and several egg pockets (photo below). Believe me, after what they do to our garden, when we do dig one up, we have had no trouble putting them in a jar ourselves.

We did not know what all that soap would do to our vegetbles so we only tried it in one area. Maybe we should do it more. Do you know of any problem planting in the beds after use of the detergent?? Apparently it is highly unusual to find these creatures in this neck of the woods.

Mygardens~ Our solution is somewhat similar( I received a stronger formula from an agricultural agent) and was advised that the solution would not harm our gardens. I use 2 ounces dishwashing detergent (without the bactericide or bleach agent) in 1 gallon warm water. Then pour over the area suspected, where the most crickets emerge I then repeat the process over that area. Here's a pic of the previous infected area....where the nasturtiums are now growing, lettuce and india mustard were grown last year after the soap treatment. Very effective and as you can see no mole cricket damage as they are "no mo!"