Mice, Voles, Moles, And Shrews, OH MY!

Funny how sometimes think you know is wrong.   I thought I was identifying some lawn rodents correctly for years, but now I'm not as certain.  

I know what a mole looks like without much doubt, so I can kind of not worry about mistaken identity there.  They are simply bigger, have almost invisible eyes, and large paws.  I have a few around (Marley caught one once), but not many.  They tend to stay in their tunnels and leave and occasional, well, "molehill".  They eat only underground grubs and worms.  I begrudge them the worms (which I love for soil health) but applaud their taste for grubs.  They do have a side effect I will mention later.

So my problem is mice, voles, and shrews.  I forgot about shrews.  It's like when you have a lot of squirrels, you don't always notice the chipmunks.  So, after reading some articles of the differences between mice and voles, I thought I could tell them apart mostly through feeding habits and habitats.

Mice are not a real problem to a gardener.  They live above ground (though nest in small burrows).  They mostly just eat fallen flowerseeds.  And easy to identify by their long tails, prominent hairless ears, and plump round bodies.  If they get into the house, they are easy to control.  Cats and (in tight places like under the oven) traps take care of any invaders

So I thought that left just the voles.  And it made sense.  Voles use mole tunnels where available or dig their own near the surface.  They eat plant roots below-ground and stems at ground level.  They have short tails like moles but they are smaller.  They seldom invade houses (no plant roots to eat).  And the images I saw years ago seemed to show them as slender, chisel-toothed, and small-eared (as is suitable for travelling through tunnel).  And the little rodents that the cats brought up on the deck (for play or as "gifts" to me) matched that description perfectly.  

But as I decided to post about the little evil things, I looked at pictures of voles.  They didn't match my recollection of previous images.

This is not what the cats have been catching!  

Allow me to interject.  I DO indeed have some moles, some field or house mice, and many voles.  I have come across a couple of molehills.  I have trapped mice in the house and the shed (a natural wintering place where I have found nests and they have chewed into corn gluten fertilizer bags).  

I know I have voles because of the shallow surface tunnels and them eating unprotected tulip and hyacinth bulbs by digging tunnels belowground and also digging down from the surface.  They also leave small clean holes in tunnels for surface access.  Moles don't do that and mice don't tunnel.

I have no idea why shrews completely escaped my mind for many years.  Sometimes, you just miss things.   It's embarrassing to miss basic stuff, but it happens. I think the cats are catching shrews.

Sure looks like what they have been catching to me...

According to Wikipedia,shrews forage for seeds, insects, nuts, worms, and a variety of other foods in leaf litter and dense vegetation, living both over and under ground.  They say (to my surprise), shrews are not even rodents, being more related to hedgehogs.  

I know a lot of "stuff".  But what I DON'T know is so much greater...

A wise person once said that it isn't what you know that gets you in trouble, it's what you think you know that isn't true.  It wouldn't be the first time for me.  I thought I knew my yard's rodents; I didn't.  Live and learn.

If so, they have the perfect place here other than the cats. My back yard is semi-wild, mostly organic, covered with leaf litter and groundcover plants and brambles (so there are rarely disturbed by my activities).  I have many large seed-bearing plants (hollies, berries, and nandinas), rich undisturbed soil (lots of earthworms), and many small-rooted plants.

I gather that they (like voles) use existing tunnels, but usually live aboveground (or The Mews wouldn't be catching them).

I don't actually mind what rodent or shrew The Mews catch.  All are annoying in some way.  I respect a certain degree of lethality in them and glad to see that Laz has joined the club (Ayla used to be a great "mouser" but has retired in her senior years).

But I should probably retire "mousies" as meaning all small furry mammals.  Convincing them to change the term might be more difficult.  It's their blog, after all...  

But for myself, I will try to remember the differences.  Shrews are not mice or voles and they don't eat my plants (but like moles, they do eat my worms).  Mice aren't a garden problem, but voles are.  Voles don't invade the house, but mice do (but The Mews get them).  I don't have many moles or mice, but I do have a lot of voles and shrews.

And the moles aren't much of a problem themselves, but the tunnels they build are highways for the voles and shrews.

So my original plan to reduce the moles that make the tunnels the voles (and now shrews) use is still good.  Mole repellent (industrial castor oil) and stomping the tunnels flat and milky spore powder (organic) to kill off the grubs so the moles have less food is still the way to go.  

Just that The Mews are catching shrews, not voles...  I THINK.

Mole Repellent

Nothing like things that don't work to work to get the blood flowing!  The moles finally discovered my raised garden beds and the voles followed the tunnels.

I had a bag of castor oil pellets same to use around veggies, so I spread them around there.  I also had several bottles of liquid sprayable castor oil but with something in it that shouldn't be around veggies and it went downhill from there!

There were 2 ways they suggested applying the liquid.  The first was a hose-end sprayer.  That is basically a small container where you put in a certain amount of the undiluted liquid and add some water and the water from the hose pulls up a small amount as you spray water from the hose.

The other is using a dedicated pump sprayer that you just add some of the liquid repellent and a lot of water and pump the sprayer full of air to force it out the end of a wand.

Both drive me NUTS!  As far as I can tell, unless either are pure water, they clog. 

Using the hose-end sprayer, the mole repellent turned to foam and would get sucked up with the hose water.  I mean, nothing like spraying water all over the yard and discovering that the hose-end container is as full of the application liquid as when you started.  Great!  I just watered a lawn that was already soaked with weeks of rain!

I took the thing apart, made sure everything was working, tried it again, and got the same result.  You can't get this liquid to suck in with the hose water. 

So I tried a pump sprayer.  I even have 3 of them.  One is dedicated to herbicides for wild English ivy, another persistent vine, and poison ivy death.  I can't use that one for any other purpose.  The other 2 are ones that are hard to use.  I have taken them both apart a few times and gotten them working perfectly.  They don't stay working long.  Apparently, the least bit of solid matter stops them completely.  I'm not sure whether to try and clean them out again or give the the "Sledgehammer Of Death" before sending them to the trash can.  There is a certain satisfaction in that.  I need to find a better pump sprayer...

If you have one, please tell me...

You know what finally worked?  A simple watering can.  I mixed the mole repellent in a 5 gallon bucket, filled the 2.5 gallon watering can and put tape inside to output nozzle to make it dribble the mole repellent out slowly to spread it evenly.  And did that 25 times!  Sometimes, you just have to accept doing things slowly if you want a good result.  But it was a long afternoon!

One nice thing was that I could especially pour the castor oil mix on the tunnels AND into the vole holes.

And I timed it well.  The idea is to get the castor oil liquid onto the soil and then have it soaked in with rain or hose water.  It started raining again just when predicted.

So I went inside, washed off any residual mole repellent spray, gave The Mews special treats, played toys with them, and we all had a good dinner an hour later.

The Mews hated being inside all day, but I didn't want them walking around on the stuff and then licking their paws.  And even better, it rained another1/2" as I was typing this.  It is safe now.  They can go out in the afternoon.

My hope is that the moles will decide neighbors' yards are better territory.  My understanding of castor oil is that it makes the worms and grubs taste bad.  And possibly makes them smell "wrong" to their mates and makes them not happy staying together as Mr and Mrs Mole.

And it isn't the moles I am after all that much (though I regret the earthworms they eat).  It is the damn voles that use they tunnels to get at plant roots.  No moles, fewer voles...

Odds and Ends

No recent updates on my niece and the consequences of the accident.  News could come tomorrow or in months.

I basically solved my confusion about the EU GDPR notice requiring even foreigners to post about cookie use.  I found a brief one elsewhere and stole it.  It seems to say enough.  Feel free to steal it yourself from here (right under the header).  I think that, after a month, I will move it to the bottom of the blog, and later, somewhere barely findable.  Eventually, it will become nearly meaningless like "This site complies with all international laws applicable in the United States Courts to the best of our understanding. 

I do NOT like that Blogger has eliminated forwarding of comments to email account.  There was no reason given.  If it saved them money, they should say so.  If they polled the community and got a positive response to the idea, they should say so. 

The change is a real inconvenience to me.  I mean, no complaint to Blogger if they had a good reason, but none was given.

I'm also annoyed about the end to Open ID commenters.  I have enough of them who are frustrated and they are long-time commenters who don't want to establish Google accounts.  Its not up to ME if they should or should not.

The rain as been amazing this Spring.  Starting in early May, it has rained about 16-20" total.  I didn't keep track (at the start, who knew it would be a lot?).  But I have a good rain gauge and a general idea of how many times I have seen 1/4" to 3".

And the hardest thing is that it has been rather steady.  3" was a LOT at once.  But most times it is 1/2" every day or so.  The problem is that it keeps the soil soaked.  You plant seeds in soaked soil and they just rot.

Joke:  "I planted rice in early May and they have all drowned".

Seriously, I have lost a month of planting.  I planted 4 square feet of Spinach and got only 4 seedlings.  There should have been 4 dozen.  And I can't plant my deck pots when they are all mud.  Squishing around the wet soil creates little tubs that dry out and form hard layers later that flower roots don't penetrate well.

I have molehills EVERYWHERE!  The soft soil is like Heaven to them.  They are even in the front lawn and I've never had them there before; it is usually too hard for them to dig through.  And the voles use the mole tunnels to get at plant roots.  I'm going to have to spray carol oil over the yard.  That doesn't bother the earthworms the moles feed on, but apparently, it gives them  an awful taste to the moles, so they go elsewhere.  and if there are no mole tunnels, the voles are forced aboveground where nearly everything wants to eat them. 

Their are mole poisons, but I can't use them.  A poisoned mole can mean a poisoned predator (like my cats).  And I've never found a mole trap that had any meaningful affect.  You spike or whatever an few adult moles and it makes little difference.  There are always a few fertile adults left and that means more mole babies.  You have to make the adult moles actually LEAVE!

I've started unclutterring the house.  Well, you have to unclutter before you can clean, and I've let that go for too long.  And no matter what you want to do, something else seems to have to be done first.  So I looked around for "first things". 

I tend to save interesting home maintenance, gardening articles and recipes out of the newspaper and stack them on a corner of the dining table.  I went through the stack and threw most of them away.  I'm not really ever going to make those fancy chocolate truffles or hazelnut cookies, I'm not going to make those "tandoori/honey/duck burritos", and I really don't need a 13th way to BBQ a chicken...

And really, if I ever need to refinish a water-spot on a table top or re-grout a tile, I'll just look it up on the internet. It is time to stop saving information when it it so easily available online!

What I DO need to do is collect all the random stuff off the living room bookcases.  There are aquarium supplies sitting there.  So I need to enclose the existing aquarium stand with wall panel wood and make doors so the stuff has a place to be altogether and out of sight. 

And move some kitchen appliances I seldom use out of the cat-stuff closet to above the cabinets, making room for the 2 shelves of cat toys so THEY are out of sight (but surely not forgotten). 

And then move some stacked books INTO the bookcases, etc...  Figuring out the FIRST thing to do is very important, or else I just end up shifting the clutter around...

And then there is the Cat Room.  Which doubles as a storage room.  My Xmas decorations are still out loose.  I could spend a whole day just in there!  I would like to store them up in the attic, but I had some energy-saving contractor in there a few years ago insulating the place 12' deep (and have never noticed any reduction in my electric bill).  So it is time to put down some plywood flooring (like I used to have there).  And I still have the plywood I originally installed and then removed for the increased insulation in my basement.  But that has to be done before I can move the seldom-used Xmas decorations up there.

There is always something that has to be dome first...

Weird Stuff

There is always something new around the yard. 

The last stuff in the broken compost tumbler...

The cleared spot where the original passive compost bin was against the first toolshed .  The lower color is the original color of the T1-11 panels of the toolshed.  Weather wore the panels out more than composting material did.

A weird moth showed up.   It doesn't like to spread its wings, so the picture is strange.  But it has markings I have never seen before.  And after 30 years here, I've seen ALL the regular bugs.  I bet tghis one is newly surviving by warming conditions.

On the other hand, katydids are familiar.  It it their time to show up.  

I saw my 1st japanese beetle in years today.  It was walking around a marigold flower.  I grabbed it and stomped it flat.  I've spread Milky Spore around the yard every few years for a decade.  It is a ground-dwelling bacteria that parasitizes japanese beetle grub larvae.  Seeing one reminds me do apply the milky spore again.  It has been about 7 years.  Milky spore in the soil lasts as long as there is an infestation to feed on.  After that, they die out and need to be reapplied.  But it is a very effective grub control that lasts for years and is not harmful to worms, birds, or pets.  Or humans.

Also, I have castor oil to spread around on the lawn.  The moles have discovered the front yard after all these years.  It makes their insect food taste horrible to them.  I'll start with the centers of the front and back yards to establish a "no good food" zone, and expand it slowly outwards and chase them to the neighbors yards. 

Then I'll tell the neighbors about castor oil spray and let them ruin THEIR moles lives.  As long as I keep them out of my yard, I'm happy to help the neighbors do the same.

And when the moles go, there are fewer voles.  Voles use mole tunnels to travel.  Moles don't eat plants, but voles do.  Fewer moles; fewer voles!

More Bulb Planting Fun

The Project That Never Ends continues...  WHAT was I thinking when I ordered 350 tulips/hyacinths/daffodils to plant?  Well, I suppose because I had new space and I decided in September to landscape rather than just plant grass.  And its not the bulbs, its the making of and the digging for all the wire cages to protect them from the Evil Squirrels and Nasty Voles.

Just planted in the ground, the squirrels dig them up from above and the voles eat them from below.  I'm hoping the wire cages keep them safe and blooming for years.  But I never expected it would be so much work!

I've bored you with the process before, so I won't do that again.  But even to do a few cages takes time.  It's the weather...

In one sense, I have been very lucky with the weather.  The ground is usually frozen hard by mid November and it has stayed oddly warm this year.  So I have had more time to plant them.  On the other hand, it has rained some  almost every day for 6 weeks.  Not that we are flooded; the rain is a soft drizzle.  But that's enough to make the soil slippery and muddy.  And you don't want to dig in wet soil because it packs down.  And at the end of a day working in wet soil, I would look like The Swamp Thing!

So I have a large 36'x30' sheet of plastic I cover the area with every day.  OK, the bottom 4' are not covered, but that section was the first I planted so I don't have to step in it.

So every day when it is not raining, I take all the stones off some of the edges of the plastic, peel it back for where I want to plant, and get 3 more bulb cages (holding 9 bulbs each) set in.  3 cages take about 90 minutes and after that I'm tired.  Well, each hole has to be 14"x16" and 12" deep.  And the dug up soil has to go somewhere other than on top of the previous plantings (I have styrofoam plates marking the planted spots and I can't cover THEM).

So putting the dug-up soil gets trickier the more cages I plant.  I have all the tulips planted (20 cages) and I am on the hyacinths at the outer edge on one side.  That side (of the 30' edged circle) is the easier to dig in (sandier soil vs clayier soil), so I favor that area for digging.

The other side of the circle will be for daffodils, more about those when I plant them, but they are FAR easier to plant...

So I wanted to start on the hyacinths yesserday.  The forecast looked good.  The Weather Channel website for my town said no rain until 6 pm.  Hurray!  I got started at 2:30.  It took 15 minutes to get the ools and bulbs outside and peel the plastic sheeting off.  So I started to dig the first hole.

And then it started to rain!  Misty at first but then more steadily...  Dammit!  I waited a few minutes as the rain got heavier.  But I gave up and re-covered the planting site with the plastic and put all the tools away. 

Fortunately, I also needed to go grocery-shopping, so off I went with rain falling on the windshield.  For 2 minutes...

Then it stopped completely.  For the rest of daylight.  ARGHHH!

Well, at least I got the grocery-shopping done...

The Last Edging Circle, 2

Well, you may recall that I had a ridge leveled in my back yard, the soil moved to raise a part of the front yard and that I was creating some areas bordered with edging so I could plant stuff.  And that I had become royally tired of digging trenches for the edging in the rocky soil.  And because there were some large tree roots I did not want to cut which meant cutting the edging to fit on top of the roots.

So I left the last one half done for a week and did other stuff.  Well, I am happy to report that I finished it today.  No more digging in that soil...

There are 3 edged areas.

The far one has perennial wildflowers mixed in with enough compost to barely cover.  I have no idea what will happen there.  The package of seeds did not specify which plants were, and they grow so slowly that I won't recognize any until they bloom, and there were already some small weeds growing there.  I might end up nurturing 400 sq ft of weeds until next Summer when I see nothing blooming  when I have to replant more carefully.

The middle smaller area is for Lychimartra Firecracker, a lovely bronze foliage plant about 24" high with lots of small yellow flowers.  But it is a bit invasive and needs to be contained by itself.  It has its own 200 sq ft circle so that I can mow around it!

The nearest area, also 400 sq ft will be a combination of daffodils, tulips, and hyacinths for Spring color; with transplants of purple coneflowers, black-eyed-susans, and goldenrod for Summer and Fall color.  Plus I plan to add a few dwarf butterfly bushes.  I may get a package of seeds of plants that attract butterflies and bees to scatter among the plants next Spring. 

This last area will take some work planting.  Tulips and Hyacinths don't last long here because of the voles, so I have to make cages to plant them in.  The daffodils are fine without cages, being toxic.  But the bulbs haven't been delivered yet, and the transplants still have green leaves so I can't move them yet. 

Which means I can start on the new border of the older flowerbed (up against the fence to the left of the above picture).  I originally planted the border with alternating 12" sections of yellow then purple crocuses.  And 4" gaps between sections for annual Summer flowers.  The voles ate most of the crocus bulbs in just a few years, so this time, I am planting them in cages.  I'll still leave a 4" gap between the cages because it is nice to have Summer flowers there too and change them each year (yellow marigolds one year, dusty miller the next, orange zinnias after that, etc).

At least I don't have to install more edging there.  It's already in place!  And the soil there is soft and the border is the width of my spade.  "Piece of cake".  Right?  Yeah, right...

Fortunately, the weather is forecast to stay nice into mid-November, so I may get away with all this before the first hard freeze hits.  But I had better get working of those cages.  Two sizes of cages actually.  8"L x 6"W x 4"H for the crocus bulb border (so I need about 50 of those).  I haven't decided on the size of the cages for the tulip and hyacinth bulbs yet.  I need to sit down and diagram cages what use a 3' wide roll of wire mesh efficiently.

But I have the crocus bulbs now, so they come first.  The tulip cages can wait a few days...  But they will look basically like this...

 


















 12-18" square, 6" high.  It only needs making a wood form to bend the wire mesh over.  Not that that takes no time, but it beats buying cages at $30 each!

The Three New Planting Areas

You ever get yourself planned for more than you can do  by the time you should?  Of course you have.  Think of that last party you threw...  For me it is planting stuff.  And the order of planting stuff can get awkward too.

I'm tired of digging ditches for edging.  It's harder than I thought for the 3 new planting areas.

Perspective is strange.  That far one is as big around as the near one.  They are 80', 40', and 80' respectively.  So I had to dig narrow trenches 5" deep to set the edging down mostly in-ground.  The far area ground has a lot of gravel and rocks.  Half the digging required a leverage fork to dig dirt loose along the perimeter, a pick to loosen the rocks, a trenching shovel to scoop the loosened mixture out, and a grub hoe blade (the other side of the pick) to chip away the bottom to get in uniformly 5" deep. 

Naturally, all those tools have short handles, so I was either bent over or on my knees the whole way around with each tool.

OK, it's getting easier as I move toward the house.  The soil is better.  Maybe.  Fewer rocks, but more heavy clay.   The clay stick to the tools and I have to bang them on the ground to get the stuff off!  I was going to say I can't decide which is worse, but actually they both are.  :(

Then of course, the edging has to be set in the trench and the trench has to be refilled.  More fun...  Well, it's easier to backfill the soil than to dig it up, but it still takes some work.

So I have the far area finished (took 3 days of off-and-on work).  More "off" than "on" because I'm way past 30 (my vague recollection of when I was at my physically best).  At 65, I'm at the point where I don't mind working hard with rest in between but darn don't want to die of a heart attack just to plant some flowers.  At 30, that possibility never even occurred to me.   So I make sure to stop every 15 minutes and relax for 5.

I finished the middle edged area today.  Just the nearest one left to do, and I am pretty sure that area as the easiest soil to dig in.  I might get that last edging in in 2 days.

But today, it occurred to me that I have a timing problem with the plantings.  The far area will have a natural wildflower area and some transplanted purple coneflowers, goldenrod, and black-eyed susans.  The smaller middle area will have only the invasive Lychimastria Firecracker.  The nearest area will have half-shade wildflowers.  So far, so good...

But 2 weeks ago, I had the great idea of planting a lot of spring-flowering bulbs among the areas for early color (and most enclosed in below-ground 1/2" wire mesh cages for protection from the voles and squirrels).  Well, the daffodils don't need protection, but the tulips and hyacinths do, and that causes a problem. 

If a plant the wildflower seeds in the far are now (as I should), they will be JUST growing when it is time to plant the spring-flowering bulbs in mid November.  Ack!  I would be walking all over the new plants.  I can't plant them now, as they won't arrive until early November. 

The middle area isn't a problem.  The Lychimastria can't be transplanted until they go dormant, and that will be early November.  So they and the spring-flowering bulbs go in at the same time.  The near area isn't a problem, because the half-sunny wildflowers will get sown in Spring and I can easily walk around the emerging bulbs then.

I'll have to think about how to manage the planting of that far area some more.  I'm not worried; there is always a solution to any problem.  I just have to find it.

And I have more on the landscaping To-Do-List.  200 crocus bulbs to plant in vole-proof cages.  But that's for the next post...

Going After The Moles And Voles

I spread Milky Spore around the lawn several years ago.


Its a tiny parasite that seeks and infests insect grubs in the lawn.  And it seems to have worked reasonably well,  I saw no mole tunnels for the past 2 years.  No insect grubs, no moles!  But I saw one mole tunnel today, so I need to maybe I need to apply it again.  Or spray castor oil on the lawn.  Moles hate that stuff.  Apparently, it makes the insect grubs and worms they feed on taste vile.  Moles aren't exactly evolved to consider the taste of fish as safe food and moles have a very highly developed sense of smell.

And it isn't the moles that bother me so much, it's the voles that use the mole tunnels to get around safely underground.  Moles don't eat plants or plant roots, voles do.  But to reduce the voles, you have to reduce the moles.  No mole tunnels, fewer voles.

I have identified a lot of vole-holes.  When you see a mole tunnel and a 1" hole in it, that's where the voles are coming out to feed on the plants above ground.  So I have collected plastic covers to hold vole traps under.  They are baitless.  These aren't mousetraps that need bait.  The idea is that under enclosed covers, the voles will search around and just walk into the traps eventually.


But I think it is time to discourage the moles themselves again.  They seem to hate castor oil (as do I), and sites say that moles will leave areas soaked with castor oil.  We'll see.  I'll start from the center of the back yard and slowly work outwards.  And then spray along the fence a few times a year to keep them out. 

Part of my idea is to do something different every year that moles don't like.  If I do enough things they don't like, eventually they will leave.  And if the moles leave my yard, I can take care of the voles afterwards.

There is a mole poison, but I won't use that.  One of the cats might catch a poisoned mole and eat it.

One thing at a time, as safely as possible, and gradually...  The Cro-Magnons didn't kill all the cavebears in a year, though they did eventually.

Milky Spore Application

Well, I finally did it again.  2 years ago, I spread Milky Spore across all the lawn.  This time, I did it through the woods and field areas.  Milky spore is a bacteria that targets white grubs like Japanese Beetles in the soil.  It is not harmful to beneficial insects or worms.  The bacteria infects the grub, multiplies, kills it, and sends billions of new bacteria into the surrounding soil.  If/when there are no more grubs the spores go dormant until new grubs appear.

It is very effective stuff.  It isn't easy to use though.  The dust can be harmful to people and animals if inhaled.  So you need to wear a respirator (N-95, R-95, P-95, or HE filter).  I had one.  Plus disposable rubber gloves.   Local home store stuff...

You basically have to put down a teaspoon of this microbial powder every 4' in a grid.  The first time, I did it with an actual teaspoon.  That was hard because you can't just drop the stuff onto the ground from a standing position.  So I had to squat and stand up every 4' (that's about 900 times).  Fortunately, this time I found a spreader available cheap.

I used that this time.  It was SO EASY!  Its a 3' tube with a shaker at the bottom.  You tap it on the ground every 4' and it deposits the teaspoon. I chose a calm day with a rainy day to follow.  You don't want exposure to these microbes but rain or watering sends them safely into the soil.  I kept the cats inside today.

Milky Spore should keep down the soil grub population for 20 years.  Grubs attract moles,  voles use mole tunnels, and voles eat plant roots.  Getting rid of the grubs means fewer moles means fewer voles, means fewer plants killed by voles!  It takes a couple of years to really take effect.

The application from 2 years ago is working, because this year I only saw one single mole tunnel in the lawn.  But I still saw a lot of them in the wood and field so that's where this application went

So here is the stuff!

The shaker bottom...

The 3' tube of the shaker...

The N-95 respirator...

The N-95 box that had 20 respirators I thought only had one!  

A Day In the Yard

Well, the past 2 days were near 100 degrees F, so I basically stayed inside.  But we have more hot weather coming up, so I took advantage of the "comfortable" 90 degrees and spent most of the day outside.  Actually, it wasn't too bad because the humidity was low and most of my backyard is shaded in the afternoon.

I had 3 goals for the day:
1.  Replant my pole beans and cucumbers (they simply did not grow the first time).
2.  Deeply water the veggie garden and flowerbeds (we have had a rain deficit every month since November and especially this month).
3.  Apply parasitic nematodes to combat grubs (mole food, and mole tunnels are vole highways).

First, the beans and cukes...  I am accustomed to presoaking my large seeds.  It usually works so well.  Unfortunately, I left the seeds soaking too long before the 1st planting, and only 2 plants came up.  Then I did the same thing 2 more times and didn't even bother to plant them because they were mushy.  There are times when you can really get annoyed at yourself!

Today, I took the last of my seeds, planted them in the cracked dry soil, and watered them deeply.  How dry was the soil?  Well. I watered it 3 days ago and today the soil was in dry clumps that I had to break up by hand in fine powder after I used a trowel to dig a row!  I watered the new seeds (and my existing small crops alongside) until it was damp 4" deep...  That ought to be good for a day.  I'll check again tomorrow.  That took a half hour.

Second, the garden and flowerbeds...  I spent 2 hours at that.  The flowerbeds are too narrow (generally 8' wide) to water with an oscillating sprinkler, and I didn't want to waste water on the lawn (which is in fine shape so far).  So I watered by hand so I could get the water right where it was needed. 

Now, watering by hand to get enough water into the ground is REALLY boring, so I have developed a liberating technique:

A.  Set up a stand for a radio, a timer, and a beer. 
B.  Set a chair next to the stand (in the shade of course).
C.  Plant a spading fork with a D handle in the ground 8' in front of the flowerbed.
D.  Place the sprayer nozzle (set on "shower") in the D handle.
E.  Set timer for 5 minutes.
F.  Turn on hose.
G.  Sit in chair, listen to radio, drink beer.
H.  When timer goes off, move spade 6' to the left, reset timer, sit in chair.
I.   Repeat until done.

Here is a pic of the sprayer I like to use for this.  It spreads large droplets in a wide cone, so there is little loss to wind and there is good coverage.  The nozzle gives control from a jet to wide cone, but no misting.

Here it is in the D handle of the spading fork.  The wide nozzle front helps it stay in the handle.

I use a spading fork because it is easiest to push into the lawn soil when dry, but any shovel with a D handle would work.  I am designing a better tool for the job.  If I am successful, I'll sell it.

Works great!  Of course, you can do other minor chores each 5 minutes, but I seldom do.  You can't weed ahead of the watering because the soil is too hard.  You can't weed behind it because the grass and soil is too wet.  And you can't do anything complicated because 5 minutes isn't enough time.  Yo can only sit and listen to the radio while drinking a beer.  Is that a perfect system or what?

Third, I had to apply the second batch of parasitic nematodes...  These little critters are great!  The wriggle through wet soil looking for grubs.  When they find one, they crawl inside it, lay eggs and die.  The grub producing thousands of new nematodes who go off through the soil looking for more grubs.

I don't actually have much of a grub problem as far as the lawn grass is concerned.  But I apparently have enough to keep the moles well fed.  I don't even mind the moles all that much.  I tread down their tunnels in the lawn and they aren't eating the veggies or flowers.

It's the voles I am after!!!  The voles follow the mole tunnels and THEY eat plants.  I have lost so many bulbs and perennials to voles that I am at war with them.  But they are hard to get rid of.  Part 1 of the plan is to get rid of the moles that provide them safe passage all around the yard.  Part 2 is to find the holes out of the mole tunnels and set up traps under buckets (mustn't let the cats step on traps) to catch the survivors and babies...

Anyway, applying the nematodes takes 3 actions.  You have to soak the ground, then apply the nematodes in a water mixture, then resoak the ground.  The instructions don't explain why, but I think I have figured most of it out.  The nematodes are essentially aquatic.  So if you spray them lightly on dry soil, they just die.

And after you spray them, the water droplets tend to stick on foliage and the droplets evaporate.  So here is what I think is happening...

The soil is soaked first to give the nematodes and place to land safely and survive the first few minutes after they are sprayed around.  Then, the followup spraying waters them down off the foliage and onto the soil, surrounding them in moisture.  Once they are on wet soil, they can start to move around freely.

They are applied in 2 batches a week apart.  The soil is to be kept moist for a week after each application.  Fortunately, the first application was easy.  I had a rainstorm in the afternoon to soak the soil, then I applied the nematodes, then there was a later shower and showers each of the 2 days after that.  The soil stayed moist.

I wasn't as lucky the second application.  Dry as a bone for days!  I spent 2 hours soaking the soil with the spade and nozzle arrangement in batches all over the area where I most often see mole tunnels.  I applied the nematodes (half hour).  Then I re-soaked the soil where I applied them (another hour).

I normally find it easy and satisfying to water the gardens.  I am heartily tired of it at the moment.  LOL!  3 1/2 hours of that cured me of the "pleasure" of watering (for a few days).

Let's just hope that the nematodes have a good effect on killing soil grubs for a while.

Vole Wars

I apologize for providing no pictures.  I just couldn't think of any good ones to take.  Mole tunnels do not show up well and my cats didn't catch any voles today...  So, I'll just move along to narrative.

I'm trying to discourage moles.  Not because they cause me much trouble, but because their tunnels are used by voles.  And VOLES cause me a lot of grief.  Voles eat plant roots and I have a lot of flowers and veggies in my yard.

Just as an example, I planted tulip bulbs 5 years ago in my flowerbed.  And, in an attempt to kill off the winter weeds that plague me in the Spring, I covered the entire flowerbed in black plastic  When I removed the plastic in the Spring, I found the oddest thing.  There were circles of 8" deep holes all around the flowerbed.  I couldn't figure out what caused them.  That is, until I discovered a half-eaten tulip bulb in one of the holes!  They had thrived under the black plastic (safe from predators) all Winter and found nearly every single tulip bulb I planted.

And then I noticed that each spot was near a mole tunnel.  "Often, moles will serve as the "highway crew" and make tunnels in search of grubs and worms. Voles will often follow the mole tunnels and eat the plants which the moles ignore." (citation)


They can also be trapped, but you will never get most of them.  So I decided that I had to discourage the moles to reduce the voles.  First, I applied Milky Spore to reduce the mole's favorite food (chafer grubs) last year.  Today, I applied parasitic nematodes to the entire area where I have seen mole tunnels or vole damage.


The parasitic nematodes seek and feed on grubs.  My best friend and I both have grubs in our lawns.  He doesn't have moles or voles, but when I was helping him plant crocuses in his lawn last Fall, I discovered his lawn was infested with grubs (oddly little evidence in the health of his lawn though).  In my lawn, I surmise their presence by the activity of moles and the evidence of voles following the mole tunnels.


It was quite an interesting experience.  The parasitic nematodes come in a small envelope of dissolvable material.  You put it in a hose end sprayer, watering can, or pump sprayer to disperse them.  It sounds simple, and for most people, it would be. I, however, never have "normal" experiences...  *SIGH*

First, you have to soak the area.  I was clever (fortunate) enough to have a short rainshower this afternoon.  Yay!  So that step was free.  They I had to apply the nematodes.  I had a watercan full of rainwater and at outside temperature, so that was perfect.  I used it to fill the hose end sprayer I had.  The instructions were quite specific that the application device not have any chemicals in it.  Mine was unused (after 15 years, LOL!).  Just never used it before (I have two of them, the other has been used many times).


So I mixed some of the nemotode material into the hose end sprayed container and turned it on.  It not only leaked around the coupling, spray hit my face from the leaks.  I had to shut the water off fast and fuss with it a bit.  I finally found  some combination on tightenings and rotations that stopped the leaking.


I set about spraying the waterborne nematodes all around the yard and woods (the moles like the woods best here for some odd reason).


Oops, I should mention that the lawn grass is 6 inches high and was soaking wet from the rain.  That's because my mower is broken and has been at a repair place FOR A WEEK and they haven't even called with an estimate yet...  I never have simple problems.  I have to warn repairmen that whatever the problem is, it won't be what they expect.  Like if I have an electrical problem, it is never just a blown fuse.  Or if the cable signal goes bad, it is never just a cable box problem; the wire was burned by a lightening  strike...


So, back to the nematode spraying.  My hose end sprayer was leaking like a seive and I had to keep fighting with it to prevent the leaks (a mist really) getting all over me.  I sort of assume I didn't want to be inhaling parasitic nematodes.  But I eventually got that to stop.


I had 30 fun-packed minutes of spraying nematode water all over the yard in 90 degree heat and 90% humidity.  I made sure to soak all areas where I had ever seen mole/vole evidence heavily and all other areas lightly.


Then I had to hose down the entire area again with plain water per instructions (I imagine because lots of little nematodes were sprayed onto grass leaves and not the soil itself.  That took another 30 minutes (after fighting with a standard hose nozzle on a "quick-connect" coupling that was working perfectly well previously but now refused to connect THIS time).


Even having a towel with me was not enough to keep the sweat from dripping into my eyes and down my neck.  My shoes and socks were soaked through from the rain and hose water on the lawn grass.


By the time I was done at 6:30, I was soaked in water up to my knees and from sweat down to my waist.  Inside later, I found a tick on my head and one on an arm.  I sweated for 30 minutes (lost 2 pounds, which was nice), and my hand was cramped from holding the hose nozzle for 20 minutes (off and on).


At this time I can say that, happily, the dehydration justified drinking an entire bottle of wine (Old Vine Zinfandel by Twisted Wine Cellars - really good inexpensive wine)


So when I say I don't have "routine problems", this is what I mean.


My next step in the attack is do apply a 2nd round of Milky Spore Disease.  After that, I will spray cartor oil around the yard.  That doesn't kill ANYTHING, but it makes the grubs taste terrible to moles.  


So the moles will find less food and what the find will taste awful and they will leave my yard.  The voles won't have the mole tunnels to use to find plant roots, and they will be easier for cats and owls and raptors to find and eat.  Then, when I place mousetraps under boxes at vole exits, I will catch the last of them.


I don't have to kill all the voles, just keep the population in check.  But if I COULD kill the last one in my yard, I wouldn't mourn their absence.  LOL!


Iza the cat would though.  She likes catching them.  Unfortunately, she isn't very good at actually killing them...  I've watched her.  She leaves them after they stop trying to escape.  I'm more lethal.  When Iza leaves them, I go out and stomp them...