Problems in the Garden this Week
This time of the year, I always get a lot of folks calling or emailing asking the same question: “All of a sudden I am seeing piles of dirt appearing on the top of our lawn! I scooped some up and it’s just on top of the grass. Where is it coming from?” Well, I hate to tell you this, but those are mole hills made from male moles. Yes, it’s that time of the year when those males get pretty busy constructing new tunnel highways down deep in your lawn (6-8 inches down) that they travel in to move around your yard and into the neighbors, as well as connecting with their female counterparts. And what’s neat, is that as they dig their tunnels, they create an exit tunnel to push the excavated soil out, which is what you see piled up. Then, they seal off that exit tunnel, so when you remove the pile of soil, there is no hole underneath! Pretty crafty, eh? Just think – you never see those tunnels, as they’re deeper into the soils. You always see the feeder tunnels they make at the surface which they use looking for food. The highways down deep are for traveling. By the way, they can move about 80 feet per minute in those tunnels – forward or backward!
Did you know that ‘the’ mole expert lives right here in Cincinnati? He’s Tom Schmidt, The Mole Man, and is a self taught expert on moles. His expertise has been the source of mole info for most local Universities. I had the pleasure of spending a day with Tom (many years ago) as he trapped moles. Unbelievable what he knows and what he taught me that day. I call him the ‘Clint Eastwood’ of mole trappers’. If you’d like more of Tom’s mole info, visit his website at www.themoleman.com.
[If it's true that we are here to help others, then what exactly are the others here for?]
Tags: moles
