Moles are insectivores--they do not eat plant material. Ever. Not even if it's in their holes. They essentially do no damage to gardens; though they do eat earthworms, they also eat grubs.

Whatever ate your watermelon, it was not a mole. Perhaps raccoons.

Like Lacey said, moles eat insects- most commonly grubs and earthworms. Now there may be some scenario where there were lots of worms or slugs under the melon and so the mole ate them as they ate the melon or something... Anyhow, if you have a lot of moles in your lawn, you likely have a grub problem which can be remedied either organically with nematodes (takes a while) or with a blast of nasty chemicals, as you prefer. The moles will go elsewhere if there is not enough food for them. If you rarely see any sign of them, I wouldn't worry. Maybe find a way to get your melons out of direct contact with the soil so that the insects don't find them to be such attractive cover (food AND housing in one spot, oh boy!). Cheers!

Sunni

Hi Casey0476,

As laceyvail stated, it's not a Mole. But, it's probably not a tunneling raccoon either. Most likely it's a Vole (aka a Meadow Mouse). They LOVE root crops but they aren't afraid of a watermelon either lol.

Hot peppers, or some combination of ingredients including hot peppers, is one of the "homemade" deterrents used (see link below for a recipe).

I also did a search here and found a thread about this topic. It seems one of our fellow gardeners has used an "organic" mole repellent to get rid of voles in a potato patch. You might want to look there as well.

Good luck in your fight.

Rick

Here is a link that might be useful: CT Gardener: Recipe for Deer and Vole Repellent