In article
,
Sheldon wrote:

On Jan 31, 1:57?am, "ker_01" wrote:
Just moved to a new house, and now have room for a garden. Bad news is that
there is a huge mole problem, so I was thinking about trenching around the
garden area and burying hardware cloth (metal screen with holes too small
for the moles to get through). However, I'm worried about how fast it will
rust out- I can't afford to re-trench every year or two. Soil condition is
very moist.

Does anyone have experience with burying hardware cloth, and how long it
takes before it starts rusting away?

Depending on what widths are available, I'd bury it as deep as possible to
still leave about 9-12 inches above ground to keep them from just coming up
and going over the top.

Hardware cloth does little good unless used with a raised bed. Use
hardware cloth to seal the very bottom of your raised bed garden.
Hardware cloth doesn't last long at the point it's exposed because
it's oxygen and water that accelerates rust, not just plain water.
The totally buried hardware cloth can last like 20 years, however you
really need to get the mole population down.... they feed on grubs and
root crops.. and believe it or not moles can gnaw through metal. But
still it's very difficult to rid established mole colonies, your best
bet are a couple three female cats, Toms are not reliable hunters,
they may but mostly they can't be bothered. Female felines hunt
naturally even when well fed. A good mouser will annialate her own
weight in rodents every day.

Mooch is the world's best mouser, many a mouse caught in her stare
just rolled over and died from fright:
http://i39.tinypic.com/23ku2p0.jpg

I prefer the synthetic woven ground cloth on 12 foot wide rolls (e.g.
the commercial quality stuff from places like QC supply = item number
360038)

Some of mine has been defending raised and non-raised beds, as well as
providing an underlayment for stones that rest under my greenhouse
benches both in and out of the greenhouse for more than 10 years.

The floor of my greenhouse is this fabric and we work on it every day.
The only thing under it is plain old dirt.

YMMV

Doug