Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

permaculture - Re: [permaculture] Gopher control

permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: permaculture

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Loren Davidson <loren@farwalker.com>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Gopher control
  • Date: Fri, 09 Aug 2002 08:52:10 -0700

At 06:57 AM 8/9/02 -0500, Mark wrote:
Their their burrows are pretty shallow, you may be able to flush them out with a garden hose and catch them in a snare or net for relocation. Having said that it's completely unethical IMO to "relocate" a pest you don't want to some one elses farm or garden.

Given how many plants - including fruit trees - I have lost to gophers over the years, I have absolutely no qualms about "relocating" them to the gopher afterlife, sorry John, by any means that doesn't imperil other species in the vicinity.

I have one acquaintance who has remarked, "I hear that garlic-stuffed gopher is delicious." :) Sounds to me like an appropriate way to harvest surplus gophers.

That said, here are some bits by a southern CA gardener named Andrew Lopez, from his book "How to Heal the Earth In Your Spare Time" (Acres USA, ISBN: 0-911311-26-2). I've found some of his suggestions to be really helpful, but haven't tried these yet.

Top-dressing with year-old horse manure has a repellant effect; they "don't like manure at all." (I'm not sure this one works in practise, though the last gopher damage I had in a bed with horse manure may not have had enough of it to drive them away.)

One gopher-repellant formula he lists involves mixing equal parts tobacco dust, cayenne pepper, and diatomaceous earth (DE) and injecting this into an active gopher tunnel with the same type of injector you'd use to put poison into their tunnels. He also claims that putting human hair in the tunnels will make gophers go away.

I don't agree with his recommendations for the battery- or wind-powered "gopher stakes." In my experience, they only enrage the gophers, who become even more destructive. And the little beasties tunnel right aroung "gopherspurge."

Build soil,

Loren

At 10:45 PM 8/8/02 -0700, you wrote:
Aloha,

Looking for tested methods of gopher control for a friend of mine in
central coast CA, non-killing if possible. Trench and wire mesh around
the garden is a future option but not doable this year due to lack of
time and/or money (how deep will they go, anyhow?). So, repellent
mixes, that sort of thing, for short-term relief until a longer-term
solution can be implemented...

thanks,
John S.

Loren Davidson Earth steward, healer, singer/songwriter
loren@farwalker.com http://www.earthspring.org/loren/
AIM: loren334 ICQ: 65291610
Music: http://www.earthspring.org/lorendavidson/
***Ask me about Sunset Celebrations in Berkeley - next one 8/27***
"Life goes on." - Sun Bear





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page