Gopher Wars!
Created on 6/5/2009
It only took one night for the gophers to count coup at the Park Place community gardens. Lettuce was the first victim, and within five days they’ve sampled from nearly every plot. If left unchecked there will be nothing left, but it’s going to take a bit of creativity to keep up with the busy little guys.
I knew there might be a problem when we were tilling earlier in the month. Large holes dotted the field, and the “squeak” of alert sentinels echoed across the area. I held out hope that these particular ground squirrels didn’t have a taste for fresh veggies.
At my old place outside of West Glacier, I had ground squirrels (gophers) running and burrowing all over the place, but I don’t think I ever lost a plant to them. Of course, all of the raised beds were built out of stone, which might have been enough to discourage them from bothering anything since it’s not quite as easy to pop up, run out and grab something.
During our big opening day last Saturday it was wonderful to see everyone working hard to clear their individual plots, as well as prepare the areas we’re using to plant crops for the food banks. After a long winter and cold spring, everyone was happy to have their hands in the soil. But if the gophers use the garden as their pantry, I’m afraid the enthusiasm will quickly wane.
My favorite anti-squirrel devices are the dogs bred to roust them out of their burrows. Skippy, an aging Jack Russell terrier, is our unofficial mascot and “gopher-gitter.” He had a ball nosing from hole to hole knowing what morsels lay beneath the soil. The boy was on a mission, and I’m certain he would knock down the population if he was there all of the time.
Since we can’t employ Skippy around the clock, we have to look to other measures. Poison is a long standing option, but the gardeners would rather try less harsh methods. We’re going to try bubblegum, cayenne pepper (which works well in motivating ground hogs to move elsewhere), garlic, and possibly fox scent. There were other suggestions that are questionable whether they’d work, plus some are too gross to print.
In the meantime, we need to exclude the vegetables by fencing or containment of some sort. I have the Wall-O-Waters around my squash plants to discourage hungry gophers looking for tender flowers, and my friend has collars made of plastic gallon plant containers with the bottom cut off that are working well to protect her broccoli and kale. But for serious protection - since gophers obviously do wonders underground - we would have to bury a fence 18-inches below the ground around the entire perimeter to make sure they don’t burrow their way up right in the middle of the corn patch.
Since there’s more than one way to skin the proverbial gopher, we’ll see what works to keep the gophers out of the garden without resorting to draconian methods. The gardeners won’t give up without a fight so I’m sure this will be an on-going saga!
