Does the Mole Plant Really Repel Moles?

[joel]

This is a invasive, poisonous plant that will not stop moles & gopher.
Euphorbia lathyris is marketed as a way to rid your yard of mole & gopher, it dose not work.
https://laidbackgardener.blog/2021/05/02/garden-myth-does-the-mole-plant-really-repel-moles/

 

[Meerkat]

I don't know since I haven't heard of a mole plant.So far no mole problems here,hope I didn't just ginx myself.

 

[Supervisor42]

This is a invasive, poisonous plant that will not stop moles & gopher.
Euphorbia lathyris is marketed as a way to rid your yard of mole & gopher, it dose not work.
https://laidbackgardener.blog/2021/05/02/garden-myth-does-the-mole-plant-really-repel-moles/

We had moles in the back yard where we lived in north Alabama.
You had to watch where you stepped because if you stepped on one of their tunnels, you could easily twist your ankle when their tunnel collapsed.
Just a couple can fill your back yard with tunnels.
The sure cure for them is a cat with excellent eyesight that loves to dig.
Our outside cat would sit on the back patio for hours and watch the back yard like a hawk.
When he saw the ground being bumped up, he knew the little bugger was at the end of a tunnel digging.
They have such an extensive network of tunnels, you can't catch them, they just disappear.
The vibration of human footsteps on the ground is enough to tip them off.
He would start digging behind it and it had nowhere to go. A lot of work.
I'll admit, he wasn't very humane in dispatching them when he dug them out .
Kind of 'played with them to death'.
Soon the tunnels (which made mowing a royal pain) went away.

 

[joel]

I put this tread up to warn people about the Euphorbia lathyris plant, now that is done, We can talk about moles & how to really get rid of them.
I know a lot of people who use cats that was worth their weight in Gold, that controlled voles, moles, mice & rats, sometimes snakes.
I have put out milky spores on customer lawn to kill grubs, so the moles would leave the yard for a lawn with grubs.
I knew a farmer with a wicked spring loaded fork trap for moles, never had that trap, we used the cat like Supervisor42.
We had rat killings on the farm, like Jerry Clower & Marcel Ledbetter had.

 

[dademoss]

The neighborhood cats do a pretty good job on the moles, and now and then you get to see a hawk come in for snack. That is a sight to see.

 

[Supervisor42]

, We can talk about moles & how to really get rid of them.
I know a lot of people who use cats that was worth their weight in Gold, that controlled voles, moles, mice & rats, sometimes snakes.
I have put out milky spores on customer lawn to kill grubs, so the moles would leave the yard for a lawn with grubs.
.

Yep, you've been schooled on 'em too!
That is what makes them so hard to deal with.
They only eat grubs and worms (live stuff) so you can't bait them like rats and mice.
No d-CON for moles and voles.

I never knew exactly which ones we had. It didn't much matter.
Just knew they were a pain, and the cat tore them a new one.

 

[joel]

Yep, you've been schooled on 'em too!
That is what makes them so hard to deal with.
They only eat grubs and worms (live stuff) so you can't bait them like rats and mice.
No d-CON for moles and voles.View attachment 65394
I never knew exactly which ones we had. It didn't much matter.
Just knew they were a pain, and the cat tore them a new one.

I did research on voles for another customer, who wanted raised garden beds, but feared she would raise more voles than tomatoes.
We put down 1/4 grid wire to keep animals from tunneling up though the beds, it seemed to work.
While voles can live without moles, but they use old mole tunnels to move from cover to cover.
I have seen thousands of mice & rats, a hand full moles, I have never seen the pointy nosed voles in the books/ pictures.

 

[Peanut]

I know nothing about the plant, thanks for the info. I haven't heard of it before.

Dogs, don't leave out the pups. My big german sheppard hates mice, rats and moles. He digs a lot faster than a cat! He's been killing them for years, occasionally digs up a chipmunk.

Rat terrier, they were bred for this. I've never owned one but had friends who swore by them when it came to mice and moles.

 

[Double R]

We have voles like crazy around here. We’ve found that there is less than you’d think when you see a dozen holes and kill just one vole the holes stop. But they are destructive especially in the garden. We shoot them when we see them. Flush the holes till they come out works too sometimes. Also have finally found traps that work well consistently. The owls get dozens a night (we see on the owl camera) and the cats have their fill. If we don’t stay on top of the holes they get out of control fast. Wish there was some sort of plant that kept them away. They are a huge pain.

 

[MoBookworm1957]

My dog Strawberry will take care of moles, voles in the yard.

 

[Bluetick21]

Other then my dogs and cat named killer. The best thing I found for moles is. Get rid of the grubs if there’s no food they won’t stay long

 

[ellie]

I live in Oregon. Lots of people here grow cannabis. In discussion about moles with such folk they tell me that moles might dig toward a cannabis plant but never into the roots--just around the perimeter, from which I deduce they do not like something about these plants. I am trying something new for my mole problem--planting cannabis seeds in some beds with the worse moles damage/ I'll have to figure how to prune them to keep them small and non flowering but hope that it repels moles which here, just basically un-plant my young plants by digging under them.

 

[joel]

Non-Flowering! Buds are the best part, according to a friend of mine ,

 

[Neb]

Non-Flowering! Buds are the best part, according to a friend of mine ,

Unpolinated flowers are the best.

Hairs good balls bad.

To keep female and toss the males.

Just work it backwards.

Not that I know anything.

Ben

 

[ellie]

Ummm well I just noticed the cat used that nice soft dirt for a toilet, lol, not sure if they'llgrow at all now. Drat. Moles are the bane of my garden!

 

[Neb]

Ummm well I just noticed the cat used that nice soft dirt for a toilet, lol, not sure if they'llgrow at all now. Drat. Moles are the bane of my garden!

Cat litter boxes

One of the reason I keep cages over my raised beds.

I hate seeing a new mound of dirt next to a slight depression particularly in the potatoes boxes.

Ben