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Are moles and voles turning your peaceful garden into a battlefield? These tiny creatures can cause quite a bit of trouble! Moles can tunnel at an incredible speed—one foot per minute—and create vast underground networks. But which one is in your garden? And, should you get rid of them?
While moles and voles may appear similar at first glance, they are distinct in both appearance and behavior. Understanding these differences is crucial for effectively managing them. Despite their rhyming names, moles and voles are unique creatures with their own set of traits and behaviors.
What's The Difference Between Moles and Voles?
Moles are 4 to 7 inches long with distinctive paddle-shaped feet and impressive digging claws. They have long snouts, tiny, almost invisible eyes, and no external ears. Moles are designed to live underground. They have special velvety fur with no grain, which allows them to move in any direction through their tunnels.
Voles, on the other hand, look like chubby little field mice. They have compact bodies about 5 to 8 inches long, clearly visible eyes, and small ears. Their regular mouse-like paws are totally different from moles' specialized digging feet.
What do moles eat vs what do voles eat?
Here's an easy way to remember the difference: think "M" in mole for "meat-eater" and "V" in vole for "vegetation-eater." Moles are carnivores; they eat earthworms, grubs, and insects. These can eat 60 to 100% of their body weight daily!
Voles stick to a strictly vegetarian diet. They eat plant roots, stems, grass, bulbs, and sometimes tree bark.
This diet difference really sets the two rodents apart. Moles rarely damage plants directly, while voles systematically destroy garden vegetation.
How to Tell Which Pest is in Your Garden
- Mole evidence: Raised tunnel ridges, conical volcano-shaped molehills (1-2 feet wide), and no visible entrance holes.
- Vole evidence: Golf ball-sized entrance holes, 1-2 inch wide surface runways, and no molehills.
Check your plant damage, too—if plants suddenly collapse with roots all gnawed off, voles are your culprits. If you just see uprooted plants near tunnels without bite marks, moles are probably responsible.
Signs of Damage in Your Garden
Tunnels and Holes
Moles create distinctive volcano-shaped hills that pop up overnight across your lawn. These molehills have a uniform, conical shape and can quickly kill patches of grass and leave unsightly bald spots everywhere. Voles, however, are surface travelers. They create narrow, worn paths through your grass, where they feed and scurry about. These runways measure about 1 to 2 inches wide and become super obvious in early spring after snow melts—suddenly revealing their secret winter highway system!
Disappearing Plants
Ever had beautiful seedlings vanish without a trace? That disappearing act is the work of voles. These critters love roots and bulbs. When voles attack, the plants might suddenly wilt, yellow, or completely collapse as their root systems get devoured. Fruit trees and shrubs are especially tasty to voles.
Your young plants might get uprooted or shoved aside when moles tunnel underneath, searching for their next meal. But the moles aren't making them disappear; they are only moving them out of the way.
Spongy Soil
Have you ever walked across your lawn and felt the ground sink beneath your feet? That squishy, uneven sensation is a sure sign of tunneling activity happening right under your toes. Mole tunnels aren't built to last—they collapse when stepped on. This creates that distinctive spongy feeling.
Chewed Bark and Root Damage
Take a close look at your trees and shrubs. If you see gnawed bark, that is from voles. Voles leave behind distinctive 1/4-inch side-by-side grooves in the wood as they chew on trunks. They usually eat bark in winter when other food is scarce. This bark stripping can prevent trees from moving water and nutrients throughout their canopy.
Why Moles and Voles Might Not Be All Bad
Before you declare all-out war on these little garden visitors, let's take a moment to appreciate some of their surprising benefits! These tiny mammals actually contribute to garden health in ways many of us overlook.
Soil Aeration
Moles might disrupt your perfect lawn, but they're actually great for soil health. These speedy diggers can tunnel up to 15 feet per hour or 12 inches per minute when conditions are right. All this digging mixes soil nutrients and improves both aeration and drainage. Moles are like garden tillers, conditioning soil without you lifting a finger.
Vole burrowing also loosens and aerates the soil, helping water soak deeper instead of running off. Their activities mix nutrients by moving them from deeper soil layers right up to root zones.
Bug Control
A single mole devours about 40 pounds of insects every year, including many troublesome pests like cranefly larvae and slugs. This can make a massive difference in other areas of your garden and lawn. If the moles aren't eating the slugs, the slugs might be the ones destroying your garden.
Food Chain
Voles are a crucial food sources for foxes, owls, snakes, and other wildlife. They form key links in garden food chains and support biodiversity. Working with nature rather than against it can create long-term solutions for your mole and vole challenges! Creating a balanced garden ecosystem might be the most sustainable way to manage these little diggers while supporting your garden's overall health at the same time.
Nature has its own pest control system that works beautifully! Owls, hawks, foxes, and friendly non-poisonous snakes are all natural vole population managers. Even your household cats can become excellent vole hunters! To invite these helpful creatures into your space, try:
Keeping some dead trees and wooden fence rows where predators can make homes
Setting up raptor perches (10-15 foot poles with 1-2 inch diameter perches) about one per 5 acres. Building nest boxes to attract kestrels and other birds of prey
Natural and Humane Control Vole and Mole Methods
The benefits fade when the damage gets out of hand. For moles, this usually happens when their tunnels disturb young, newly planted trees or create too much surface damage. With voles, the problems grow as their numbers increase. A few aren't an issue, but a colony of voles will significantly damage plants, bulbs, and bark.
Instead of immediately eliminating these creatures, try first comparing "the level of damage with the level of control." Sharing some of your harvest might be worthwhile in a thriving garden, given all the soil improvements these little workers provide.
Many times, though, especially with voles, the damage gets to be too much. Want to manage those moles and voles without harsh chemicals? Thankfully, there are plenty of gentle ways to protect your garden while respecting these little creatures and their ecosystem.
Why Poisons Are Not Your Friend
Poison baits might seem like a quick fix, but they have serious drawbacks! They can harm helpful wildlife like foxes, hawks, and owls that eat poisoned voles and moles. The poison gets transferred from the dead vole to the raptor and will also kill it. Plus, many contain sugary attractants that might tempt children and pets. Do not use poison if you care about and want to support your local hawk, eagle, and owl populations!
Natural Deterrents
Mint gives off a strong scent that confuses moles and voles when they're hunting for food. Daffodils are perfect perimeter plants because they contain alkaloids that voles find toxic. Garlic and other alliums work wonderfully, too—their odors send these pests scurrying in the opposite direction. Don't forget about fritillarias, snowdrops, and hyacinths—their bulbs contain compounds that voles simply hate.
Castor oil repellents offer a much safer option. Mix castor oil with potassium soap or dishwashing liquid for an effective deterrent. Apply it in sections rather than treating your whole garden at once—this helps guide the critters toward an exit point instead of trapping them.
Keep Your Garden Tidy
Voles love hiding in dense vegetation where predators can't spot them. Regular mowing, thorough weeding, and trimming shrubs away from ground level make your garden much less appealing to them. Clear away leaves, limit brush piles, and create open zones around your favorite plants—voles won't cross spaces where they feel exposed.
Build Underground Defenses
Physical barriers work wonders for persistent problems. For vole protection, bury ¼-inch wire mesh about 6 to 10 inches down, with another 12 inches extending above the soil. For raised beds, use a hardware cloth across the bottom before adding soil to stop tunneling from below. Protect your trees with guards, making sure they're snug to the ground without gaps underneath.
How to Prevent Future Infestations
The most reliable protection against those persistent voles? Physical barriers! For raised beds, lay hardware cloth (wire mesh with ¼-inch openings) across the entire bottom before adding soil. Make sure this mesh extends a few inches beyond the bed sides and secure it with garden staples.
Already have raised beds? No problem! Just dig a narrow trench around the perimeter about 20-24 inches deep and install the barrier vertically. Raised gardens are also a great way to naturally keep veggies out of reach from these hungry critters.
The way you mulch the garden makes a huge difference in vole prevention! The little rodents love hiding in thick mulch where predators can't spot them. To keep vole populations down, make sure the mulch is no more than 1 inch deep near plants. Avoid putting too much mulch up against tree trunks. Don't forget to regularly clean up leaf piles, grass clippings, and other debris that make perfect vole homes. A closely mowed lawn is also a good way to keep voles away—they hate crossing open spaces where hawks and other predators might spot them.