It only takes a few moles to devastate your lawn. We lived on a wooded lot and battled moles in the lawn surrounding our home for several years until we found two simple and safe methods that worked extremely well.
Moles like to tunnel under a lawn just below the surface. They feast on the earthworms, grubs and bugs found beneath a lawn, but in the process they leave tunnels and mounds of dirt behind.
At first we tried using the spring-type mole traps that are placed over a mole’s tunnel. The traps ram several spikes into the ground whenever a mole triggers the trap. The idea with this is to squash down a couple of the tunnels in the lawn and then watch to see which tunnels are pushed back up. These are the active tunnels. Spring traps are placed over the active tunnels. The problem with the spring traps is that they are a bit dangerous. We were always concerned that neighborhood kids or dogs would start playing with then and get hurt. We also found that we rarely caught any moles with the traps. We had a same concern about using poison baits and thus never used those.
Solution 1 That Works
This is a bit of an “old wives’ tale” and at first we we didn’t believe it would work. The trick is to simply find some of the moles’ air holes or poke a hole into one of their active tunnels with a finger or screwdriver. Chew a piece of Juicy Fruit gum and drop it into the hole. Do this in about a dozen places around your yard. As the story goes, the moles like the sugary taste of the gum, but cannot digest it. It gets stuck in their system and they die. Sure enough, after trying this method we started to find dead moles laying in the yard.
Solution 2 – The Mole Deterrent
Although solution 1 worked, we found that we had to continually watch for new mole tunnels and repeat the process whenever an new, hungry mole or two moved into the yard. We therefore needed a deterrent.
We found the answer with one of Jerry Baker’s famous formulas. Jerry Baker is a gardening guru who frequently uses common household ingredients to mix up concoctions for fertilizers and other useful gardening formulas. His All-Purpose Pest Prevention Formula found in his book entitled, Green Grass Magic worked wonderfully. Here is his formula. It is designed to discourage both gophers and moles.
- 1 cup of ammonia
- 1/2 cup of liquid dish soap
- 1/2 cup of urine (yes, that is correct)
- 1/4 cup of castor oil
Mix the ingredients and use a hose-end sprayer to thoroughly saturate the tunnels and mounds. We sprayed it over the entire lawn area around out home and the moles were gone within a few days. We repeated the application every few months and we no longer had any problems with moles, even though our neighbors continued to complain about them. 😀