Practical articles on raised beds, underground barriers, companion planting and non-lethal mole control. Each issue of the magazine is built around real trials in small vegetable plots, with step-by-step plans you can adapt to your own soil and climate.
Prabha Dhiraj Deshmukh edits every issue of Piege a Taupe. She has spent eleven seasons testing mole barriers, companion planting schemes and non-lethal traps on her own half-acre plot near Dadar.
Write to the editorPrabha trained as a soil scientist before turning to practical garden writing. She answers reader questions personally and keeps the editorial line firmly on chemical-free methods that work on small terrains.
Field experienceEleven seasons managing a clay-loam vegetable garden, including three years of trial plots for underground fencing and root barrier designs.
Editorial focusButte building, crop rotation, soil life and humane mole control. Every technique in the magazine is tested on a real plot before it reaches the page.
Reader contactQuestions about a specific article or a tricky mole problem can be sent directly to info@piegeataupe.com. Replies usually arrive within two working days.
WorkshopsPrabha runs seasonal Saturday sessions on non-lethal trapping and trench fencing. Places are limited to eight gardeners per group.
Field notes, planning sketches, and honest follow-ups from the Piege a Taupe editorial team. Each entry covers a specific question about raised beds, underground barriers, or non-lethal mole control, with enough detail to be useful on a small plot.
We sat down with three gardeners who manage heavy clay soil and persistent mole runs along their fence lines. The session focused on where to place a buried barrier so it does not interfere with existing drainage pipes. One participant brought a hand-drawn map of her plot, which changed how we thought about the trench depth. The notes here cover the decisions we made, the measurements we agreed on, and the one detail we nearly missed before breaking ground.
The first week after installing a recycled mesh fence is rarely as smooth as the diagrams suggest. We tracked how the soil settled around the posts, where the mesh sagged, and which corner needed extra stakes after a night of rain. This post walks through the tradeoffs we made between keeping the barrier low enough to hide and deep enough to stop fresh tunnels. It also lists the tools that actually earned their place in the shed and the ones we left unused.
Three weeks after the first inspection, we went back to the same plots to see what had shifted. The mole activity had moved to a softer strip near the compost bin, and one gardener had already adjusted her planting layout to avoid the busiest tunnel line. This follow-up looks at the small corrections that made the biggest difference, from repositioning a gate post to adding a row of fritillaria along the southern edge. It is a grounded look at what actually changes when you revisit your first plan.