11/6/26 - More Mole Battles
Aware that over recent posts, I've had several mini-rants about the mole population on my plot. The harvest and clearing of the broad bean bed means that I also had half a bed empty, with no further plans for it this year. As I also mentioned a couple of posts ago, to plug the gap, I bought a small tray of 6 Calabrese Marathon plug plants. It is these I have decided to put in place.
Removing the broad bean roots, and seeing the evidence of the mole activity, I decided to do something I don't usually do on any of my beds. I dug down a full spade depth to collapse and otherwise destroy the mole tunnels in that part of the bed. I did not want to have moles nibbling away at my new plantings! By doing this, I also discovered something relatively interesting. After only one spade depth down, I hit what I think is the 'natural' soil later. A definite compact layer of sandy soil, not easy to push a spade down into. If I wanted to, I could have broken it up and gone down further, but given that there was no evidence of moles that far down, there was no point, and I would prefer to look after the soil profile. Anyway, back to the planting...
In an effort to combat the mole, I've been thinking of numerous different ways that I could either protect my crops now, or in the future. Most of my ideas have involved putting in a barrier in one way or another. But along with each of those ideas comes the expense and the timing. I needed something quick and easy.
Kicking around the back of the shed, I had some unused chicken wire, and while not enough for me to be able to create any sort of large barrier for the whole bed, there was enough for me to make some small chicken wire baskets. My thought process was that as long as I could protect the root ball of the plant, the rest of the ground could be disturbed should the mole return. I had enough to make 4 baskets, around 20 cm in diameter, so I set about making them. Once they were finished, I dug 4 relatively large holes to set them into.
After dropping a generous amount of lime (we have club root in places) and chicken manure pellets, I planted 4 of the plants into the baskets, and then a 5th in the middle of the bed and then watered them all in.
Where the tops of each of the baskets protrudes too much above the soil level, I will trim them down the next time I have some side cutters on me. Chicken wire isn't designed to be buried, and it does eventually break down. But for the remainder of this season and as an experiment, I though it's worth a try, and makes use of a resource otherwise going to waste.