Shadow Declares War

My German Shepherd dog, Shadow, gardens with me. She never leaves my side. On Saturday, I bought onion sets and set out for the vegetable garden to plant onions, lettuce, radishes, spinach, chard, beets, and carrots. As I was busy on one end of the garden digging away, it was awfully quiet on the opposite site. I glanced up and was astonished to see just Shadow’s butt, plume tail waving, sticking out from the watermelon bed. The bed’s empty at the moment, just soil and compost and of course my 80 pound German Shepherd, nose first, shoveling soil fast and furiously out of the bed.

With a shout and a cry I raced over to scold her. “Stop that!” I yelled, dismayed. She’d dug out a trench about a foot deep and two feet long!

John hurried over to see why Shadow was being scolded. “I’ve never seen her do that before.”

“Neither have I,” I admitted. She was now sniffing around the edges of the raised beds like crazy, stuffing that giant snout of hers into every conceivable crack. She was on the scent trail of something to be sure.

Suddenly, a creature about the size of a rat raced out from the watermelon bed and just dove for a small opening in the side of the other large bed where we grow corn. We both raced over. Shadow was now zig zagging, sniffing and trying to dig out the corn bed.

“What was that?” John asked. I grabbed a shovel and banged the side of the raised bed, making as much noise as I could.

Out raced the creature. He or she dove for yet another tunnel, my dog in hot pursuit.

Eventually, Shadow chased the creature out beyond the chicken wire that encircles the garden. He or she will be back, I know. Judging from the tunnels we found, I think I’ve got a garden mole. I’ve read conflicting information about moles. Some sites say to get rid of them because they will eat seeds and damage root crops. Other sites say no, they eat grubs, insect larvae and worms, so they’re fine.

What’s your experience with garden moles? Other than letting Shadow dig up my vegetable garden, what other organic gardening methods can be used to deter the mole? Pierre the cat has taken a pass at this battle, leaving Shadow to wage her war on the mole.