I never had an orchard but did have a beautiful yard with mature trees, shrubs, flowers and a large pond. Toads everywhere and never did a plant or tree suffer from their presence. I would not worry about them at all.

When it is time to relocate some of my toad herd members, I slowly fill their hole with water. As they come out, I just pick them up and place them in a bucket with a bit of water in it. After each hole is overflowing with water and no more toads come out, I fill the holes with choice soil. The bucket carries them to their new area where they find plenty of cover and spots to dig new condos.

I can't imagine your toads hurting your trees at all. If anything, I would be encouraging the toads -- they will eat all manner of insects that might actually damage your orchard.

Lucky to have toads. Conserve and value them, because they'll take out a lot of troublesome bugs.

Yes, I'd like toads (though maybe not an overload of toads) in my garden.

They've set up shop in my greenhouse. Seem to move every few days. They won't hurt your trees in the slightest.

Yes, toads are insect eaters. Around here, they especially like slugs and snails. If you have slugs, you'll have toads. But they like other insects too; I just happen to notice the toads around areas where slugs like to hang out.

Toads are not a big problem. Your population explosion of toads is due to high levels of insects, which keeps the toads around and allows them the resources to reproduce successfully. Once the insects go away, so will the toads.

Generally, though, toads are a good thing. it may be creepy to see so many, as usually you don't notice them, but it may be normal.

Toads like to hide under rocks or leaf litter in shady areas during the day. In the winter they will burrow about 3 feet underground. Those holes you see are probably caused by voles or chipmunks, not toads.

Jag,

I don't have that many toads, but we do get crawdads. Before I started putting trees in mounds, the crawdads would dig holes beside new trees. I don't think it hurt the trees at all.

I think toads/frogs are man's best friend. They don't eat anything we grow, eat lots of different pests and never harm anybody (at least in North America). Plus they are kind of cool to look at. Especially toads.

I need to go back and read Wind in the Willows now :-)

And they sing for you in the springtime.

Toads are under great environmental pressure, so people should help them any way we can.

I've seen a few toads over the years in my yard..some frogs. If you have them, i would think that is a GOOD thing, not a bad thing. I'd love (and so would my kid) more frogs. I think we i get around to putting in a pond, they'll show up.

Better then yard gnomes.

I am all for having lots of toads around.....but my ground out here is not like most of you have ever seen. The picture is from early spring.

There are no good places for them to hide. The only soil that is soft enough for them to burrow in is the soil directly around the roots of the trees. The rest of the soil is virgin sod, as in sod house bricks type sod.

In the yard we have plenty of toads too, but the yard also gets watered. Out in the orchard only a small area gets wet from the drip system. I can see the trees where they did dig are stressed and have not leafed out at well as the trees with no holes.

{{!gwi}}

It's easy to put out some toad shelters.

As a follow up to the toad tribute, years ago I had a Gulf Coast Bug Biter electric zapper that did an incredible job on mosquitos for about a decade before it finally died. Sadly, the mom and pop company that hand made them is gone (as far as I can tell). During peak skeeter seasons, there would be anywhere from 1 to 6 (world record) toads on the ground directly below the zapper waiting for the next sizzling, crispy skeeter to drop down. And they did get fat on the well-done servings of "fresh from the grill", "all you can eat" bugs.