People have been trying to keep moles out of the garden since at least the 16th century when a garden writer of that time described a "sure fire" method of control. "Place a straight sided bucket in a hole in the ground to its rim and trap a female mole and put her into the bucket. Her cries for help will attract males that will also fall into the bucket in an attempt to rescue the female" Moles are after food when they make those tunnels you see in your yard and that food is earthworms, although they will eat grubs also (or about any other insect they find). Traps may kill a mole but another will move into that vacancy as soon as possible after you have eliminated that one, so trapping will be continuous. I know people that have trapped 100 moles every year for the last 40, or so, years and still do. The mole population has not diminished one bit. Poisons may help some, but they are poisons and could be eaten by other animals and since the dose of poison is aimed at moles could cause a larger animal excruciating distress over a period of time until it too died. Most places that have tried to replicate the studies done at Michigan State University have not. What Joe Vargas turf grass students learned is that to be effective you must apply 1 pint of Castor Oil over 5,000 square feet and then water it in thoroughly. None of the commercial products I have looked at have that much Castor Oil in the mix and all have on the label that this is meant to cover 10,000 square feet and as those turf grass students found too little will not be effective, and more is simply a waste of money. Every time Castor Oil has failed to control moles it is because it has not been applied properly. An unfortunate fact for every organic gardener is that because you will build up the amount of organic matter in your soil, and earthworms love organic matter, you will have a mole, most often only one simply because of the amount of territory each mole needs to supply its needs, anbout 1/4 acre.

I went no-spray many years ago. Encouraging birds, lizards, toads & frogs helped a lot. The rose area has a couple of bird feeders, three waters, including one big plant platter on the ground that the frogs love to soak in. Has some large rocks in it so tiny birds feel safe using it for baths & drinking. Please, NO OFFENSE intended, but I didn't have outdoor cats or dogs, which helps if you're trying to establish a wildlife-friendly yard. Yes, I LOVE pets!!! If you have outdoor pets, maybe you can place feeders & water in more raised or sheltered locations. Hang a few bird houses in sheltered places & I'm careful not to disturb bird nests in nearby shrubs & trees. My dad's fruit trees (also native species) attract birds, too. They sample a bit, but do little harm. A few overturned broken pots under shrubs make good toad hideouts. I have sprayed the veggies & some herbs that were getting gobbled. Used a solution of blender-shredded artemisia leaves--bitterest stuff I could think of--& it seemed to work. So now I clip stems & leaves to mulch them around the affected plants. Good luck.

Larry, I usually have the black ones. When the striped ones would show up, they'd strip the Sweet Autumn Clematis naked and then leave. The black ones would stick around and eat tomato plants. After they had striped the Sweet Autumn Clematis naked during the drought of 2008, it died and didn't come back and we didn't replace it. We haven't had many striped blister beetles since then. I think you're right about the insects invading heavily in search of food. That's exactly what happens here. It will seem like they are too bad around us for a long time, but not here, and then all of a sudden they reach us too and they're everywhere. That's one reason I don't think it pays to water heavily. If your garden or lawn or landscape beds are gorgeous and green when everything else around you is brown and dormant, guess where the insects will go? It drives me up the wall. I am seeing much more damage in the garden from grasshoppers the last week than I did prior to that. They're really eating the leaves of the okra and southern peas, and I need to do something about it quick. To think...when we first moved here, I was only concerned that cucumber beetles and tomato hornworms might be a problem. I had no idea many how problem pest type insects would show up in our garden every summer. Helen, Spraying garlic spray makes me hungry for anything Italian too, and it does a pretty good job of repelling all kinds of insects. I think it may repel mosquitoes because we just don't have them here near the garden or house very often at all. Dawn

Princess is a beautiful cat! My dogs will chase off raccoons in the late afternoon IF the coons are so bold as to come up to the house/garden area during daylight hours, but all my dogs are securely locked up by twilight because of the large number of large predators here along the Red River bottomlands. Raccoons have managed to climb every fence I've ever had, even this year's new 7' tall deer fence, which has kept the deer out (finally!). To keep the coons out, I think we will have to add 2' more of fencing and leave it loose so it "flops" outward as they try to scale it. And, I'll still have to remove the two gates and the cedar arbor that serves as an "entry" to the veggie garden, because the coons can climb the arbor. I've had about 10 deer a day in the yard this weekend (not all at once, but up to 5 at once) but they haven't managed to get into the veggie garden, so the new fence continues to work. Some people told me that I'd need 8' or 9' of fencing to keep out the largest deer, but so far, 7' works. I used to think raccoons were "cute", but after living here for 10 years, I now think they are a cute nuisance and I know they are viciously mean. And, keep working on the soil and it will get better. I have mostly clay, and only one narrow band of almost pure sand/silt, and have improved the heck out of them for 10 years. In the beginning, I didn't think I'd ever get it into the good shape I wanted, but I think it is about where I want it now.....although the improving, of course, goes on forever. I don't think we'll ever win the "war" with the raccoons. Our raccoons are rather bold, often looking in the french patio door, knocking at the windows, or attempting to make entry through the dog door (it is duct-taped shut for that very reason, which makes it pretty ineffective as a dog door). A friend of ours who lives fairly close to McGeehee's trapped (and then shot) 18 raccoons a couple of years ago. I think it was 2006--the year the two airplanes crashed at McGeehee's exactly one month apart. Even after he disposed of those 18 raccoons, the remaining ones STILL got every single bit of his corn. Another neighbor, who lives between us and the Red River (and, consequently takes a worse "hit" in his veggie garden from the deer and raccoons and other critters) has tried just about every raccoon remedy known to mankind, and his only success has been to use electric fence very, very close to the corn. You have to have at least 2 low strands--about 4" and 12" above the ground to keep the racoons out, and you have to have several higher strands to keep the deer out (if deer are a problem for you). You know, gardening here in Love County would be pretty easy if it wasn't for the soil, the general lack of rainfall and the creatures and critters, large and small, who want to eat everything in the garden!