Kitchen Garden Forum

Although Monika isn’t on the forum to remind me it must be time, I thought I better update the topic….

So, we suddenly have a large amount of Moles working over the allotments! And unusually, are doing a lot of their work down the main grassed ride…. It really does look a mess….

It must be the year of the mole, they are everywhere round here, some of the fields I walk through are a real mess. I thought I had escaped but they are starting to appear in the garden, time to get the traps out.

As they spend most of their time underground I guess they're pretty well protected from Avian flu so won,t kill them off that way although I don,t know whether it's transmissible to other species. We currently have a bad outbreak of this not too far away from us. A ban on walking dos without leads has been imposed, pet shops have been banned from selling wild bird food and residents are being asked not to feed wild birds. The latter seems somewhat harsh given the cold weather and lack of natural food around at this time of year.

Incidentally has anybody ever found a good natural deterrent for moles?. Most of those I,ve seen mentioned over the years have seemed to be "old wives tales".

Greetings to all. Sorry for my absence. I'm fine though. Ive moved my old greenhouse on the plot to get more light. I'll post pics in due course

Yup, noticed alot of mole hills this weekend on road verges and fields.

Anything really prickly is meant to work but, I think it only moves them on a little, Primrose!

Nice to see you back, Compo, you have been missed….looking forward to seeing the pictures.

I found the mix of one of those solar powered vibrating things & mothballs helped considerably. I didn't put the vibrating thing in the holes but behind them & mothballs in the hole. They didn't disappear immediately but I just kept doing this & eventually moved them toward the back fence & into the farmers field. They just seemed to dislike it enough to not turn back along the previous path. Or I just got lucky & they were heading that way?

One kind of rodent not affecting us here best not to tempt fate though.

I was out for a walk on Sunday and took this picture, just imagine how difficult this land is to work.

gosh, my poor mother's garden is like this (Dorset), they are slowly but surely removing the biggest ones, some much bigger than housebricks.

Finished cutting the big Holly hedge at the Big House this morning, always looks nice when it is first done….at lot of contractors I know, hate doing Holly Hedges but, I must admit I really enjoy doing them, even if it takes a while to clear up where it’s bulky stuff.

Just bought a 20KG bag of shelled peanuts for the wild birds. Whilst emptying them into the bin, noticed a label on the side.
MIGHT CONTAIN NUTS. Whatever happened to common sense.

It is of course incorrect as peanuts aren't nuts but the allergic reaction to them is usually called nut allergy.

My current purchasing problem is why can't I buy cheap bags of lime? Used to be a cheap commodity but no longer seems to be.

Energy cost of creating it and lower use by gardeners?
Our association buys less than five 25kg(20kg?) bags a year.

Does anyone else think it has been terribly dry for ages?