Gopher-free garden? Well, OK, not really.
If you live in parts of the west where pocket gophers are common and you are a gardener, you no doubt have watched plants disappear as gophers pull them underground.
While it is impossible to keep all gophers out of your garden, there are things you can do to control their ravages. Of these suggestions that follow, I've found predators, raised beds and traps solutions that allow me to enjoy productive gardening.
1. Understand your enemy. Read about gophers on the web or elsewhere and learn their habits. This knowledge will help you implement suggestions such as the ones than follow.
2. Predators. The easiest way to control gophers and one of the best is to get someone else to do the work for you. As we all know, that's easier said than done. However, a patient and hungry cat will be happy to help. So will a barn owl, if you can get one to move in and hunt. A nesting barn owl pair will eat 500 gophers a year, which gives you some idea how many gophers there are. Various snakes eat gophers, too. Friends such as these have helped me in the past, but recently they moved on. Always a risk with volunteers.
3. Gopher-proof your planting beds. Building raised beds with sides of pressure treated lumber and bottoms lined with hardware cloth (a kind of wire mesh) will create a pretty secure environment for your vegetables and flowers. Detailed directions can be found on the web.
4. Use wire planting baskets. A basket made of hardware cloth or small gauge chicken wire will protect small perennials from gophers. The small holes in the wire will strangle roots of large perennials,
5. Traps. Various traps are available in the local garden supply stores. I've heard of people who can make the widely available traps work; I never could. But I read about a trap called a "cinch trap" which has worked wonders for me. After I had experimented with it for a while, I figured it out and these traps have been very helpful. Cinch traps can be ordered on the web.
6. Poisons. I don't use poison as they are not organic and can poison other careless animals that eat it or any scavengers that eat the dead gopher.
7. Home remedies. I've tried sound machines, electric current, moth balls, ex-lax and dozens of other things. None work, the gophers just dig a tunnel around them. They are not dummies and don't give up easily.
Take Action:- UC-Davis has some great information and resources to help you in your gopher-free quest.
- Pressured treated lumber and hardware cloth are standard items at large hardware & lumber supply stores like Home Depot. People may object to pressurized lumber (nasty chemicals), but unless you use redwood (very expensive and very naughty) you will either use pressurized cedar or have something that rots pretty quickly.
- Cinch traps don't seem to exist in hardware or garden supply stores. I got mine online.
- Planting baskets can be made out of hardware cloth or small gauge chicken wire can be found at any well-stocked nursery store.
- Resource Directory:
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