The Plants Pests And Diseases

That the gases seem to cause the mole to run away initially, but it survives and returns once the gas has dispersed. It has also been suggested that if you plant the caper spurge around the area, this acts as a mole deterrent — once again I'm afraid to say that the results I have seen have never really impressed me at all. The most effective method seems to be setting mole traps, and although you can purchase these from some garden centres or direct from the manufacturers, they are quite difficult to set effectively and if you do not do the job properly you could end up either making the mole suffer a lot or failing to catch it at all. You can also buy humane traps, which allow the mole to enter without being killed. You can then attempt to move it to another location and release it, but I am always rather concerned that in the process of doing this it is likely that the mole will die of fright anyway.

So the long and short of it is that there is no truly reliable method. Perhaps the one means of controlling them that most people find effective is to employ a mole catcher, but finding a mole catcher may be nearly as hard as controlling the mole you. Moles can be kept from uprooting plants with three giant pins made from old bicycle spokes or wire coathangers. These can be removed once the plant is well established. A row of seedlings can also be protected with the same pins. Beds, greenhouses and even lawns can be completely protected by embedding narrow-gauge wire chicken mesh horizontally in the soil.

There are lots of things you can try, but rather as with moles, the results can be variable. Some gardeners find that using humming or buzzing lines, which you can buy from garden centres, works well. These are attached between two posts or poles, are held tight and vibrate in the wind, producing a noise that is only just audible to the human ear, but which seems to deter birds quite effectively. You can make a similar device yourself using the insides of an audio cassette tape.Other deterrents, such as scarecrows or shapes cut to look like cats (with marbles used for eyes), tinfoil-pie cases dangling from strings, and so forth will potentially deter birds, but generally speaking the birds soon realize that they do not pose a real threat and return anyway. Your best bet is, therefore, to choose a wide range of devices and use them all in succession so that the birds don't get a chance to get too used.