Semi-wild 1/3 acre garden that I'm trying to cultivate since last year. Heavy clay soil. Old fruit-bearing
trees, cover crops, some vegetables.
Spalax, Rodent family, pure
vegetarian - unlike Mole, Talpidae family, pure carnivorous creature.
Sure it's the Spalax due to several neighbours' evidence who hunted him after he stole their veggies.
Already made a dozen hills in my garden and is progressing. Guess there's a colony of them and a subterranean network. The neighbours use tin-rattles to deter the creatures so I fancy all
local mole-rats are ours now
Not that I have plenty of valuable
roots and tubers growing, not to mention a 20-foot row of garlic and Jerusalem artichokes they took for their groundwork exertions last year.
Seem to make no visible harm to the trees. The mole-hills in cover crops look pretty unsightly, that's true.
Before trying to expel or distract the hated animals from the garden, are mole-rats really so harmful and mightn't they be our Nature's allies, from a broader and longer-term perspective?
The obvious thing is that they gnaw and loosen compacted layers of soil underneath, making enormous amount of groundwork. That could be somehow beneficial for
water penetration and holding ability of the
land.
As for
root and tuber vegetables, it's not a problem to grow them in beds with bottom layer of woodchips or branches, where are inaccessible for Spalacidae.
Anybody has the ideas?
1) Mole-rats in the garden: 2B or not 2B?
2) If 2B, how to control their activities? Elderberry (Sambucus) underbrush seems to have no effect on them.
Layout:
http://www.earthlymission.com/digging-the-underground-life/
Habits:
Cancer-proof:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3750378/