Gardening can be as frustrating, especially as a murder mystery. Trying to figure out why I’m missing vegetables that were clearly here a few days ago makes one want to scream Whodunit. However, sometimes it seems the clues are laid out just to deceive us. The real mystery may in the end reveal itself, but you may need the observational skills of Sherlock and the cool persistence of Hercule to discover it.
It took a lot of time to recognise that the thief behind my loss of carrots, beets, peas, corn and many other plants wasn’t something living above ground. This is mostly like the annoying deer and rabbits which left evidence of their presence everywhere — but something underground.
This was only the first stage in unravelling the mystery. However, people who are easily mislead by false clues will focus on the obvious beady eyed villain, the mole. All of them are not only conspicuous, he is a bit of an officious dandy, as obnoxious as Poirot with his long pink nose and determined drilling. Another thing to notice is that one must exonerate the mole by pointing out that moles eat only insects, and do not eat plants themselves. It would twiddle his moustache with amusement, seeing how we’re so easily fooled by appearances.
I should have noticed the smoking gun sooner – the small holes that riddled my bed. I overlooked a few, until they started showing up where my carrots had been. The real culprit turned out to be voles (with a “v”), which are rather non-descript but exceptionally stealthy relatives of mice that take advantage of our confusion about moles.