The weather got warmer, a lot of the snow thawed, and my garden got covered in molehills, as well as the surrounding meadows. Usually, moles make a few hills throughout the winter, but this year, they have outdone themselves.
I do not mind them that much. They rarely go directly into the vegetable patches. And I do not maintain a lawn, my garden could be best described as a mown meadow.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
The scale is not very well conveyed in the picture – the biggest one in the right lower corner was almost half a meter across and over 15 cm in height.
Normally, I just kick and spread these around when they thaw. But since this year I need to fill the vegetable patch between the row of bamboo and my greenhouse, I gathered them all into a wheelbarrow and carted them over there. And I got four full wheelbarrows this way, which is really a lot. They actually did save me some work this year.
on one hand, free aeration. on the other, step in a hole and bust your ankle, and i have heard the tunnels they carve are used by voles, which you don’t like.
@Bébé Mélange, AFAIK, it cannot be avoided. The moles might make it a bit easier for the voles, but eliminating the moles would not affect the voles significantly at all. The voles are perfectly capable of digging their own tunnels. And water voles tend to dig in different areas than moles -- moles prefer open ground, water voles prefer to dig around trees, where they gnaw on the roots in winter. I do know there is some mutual use of the tunnels between species from experience, though. The same tunnel system can be used by pests (voles, mice, slugs) as well as useful animals (shrews). I wrote about this last winter.
I have never encountered a mole hole big enough to be a health hazard in my garden, although it is a possibility. With this much digging, it might just happen this year.
I call our moles my free rototillers. Was sitting in the garden once, doing some diddly weeding, when a mole butt emerged from a hole in the dirt next to me. Went back in the ground and came out again multiple times. Then the entire mole backed out, revealing another mole pushing the first mole out. I must have spooked them, because then they both disappeared underground. I like moles.