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  • From: Santoyo & Associates <santoyo@earthflow.com>
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Gopher control
  • Date: Mon, 12 Aug 2002 13:55:13 -0700

John,

We live on the central coast of California. Gophers are our number one issue in our market garden. Here, they love our rare and most expensive stuff but are definitely attracted to the common stuff too especially alliums and fennel (and will burrow up to 2 feet deep to get 'em).

Most of the local wineries swear by owls, and put up owl boxes on one or two hundred foot centers around the vineyards. On our 10 acre site, we have nesting pairs of owls, hawks and lots of gopher snakes... they eat literally dozens of gophers -they still don't eat enough!

There are several remedies and ideas that claim to work, but when it's said and done nothing short of "exclusionary access" (cages, hardware cloth, chicken wire) seems to work... I have consulted with a voodoo priestess, a feng shui geomancer and an unemployed shaman, I have even skinned a gopher (photo available upon request) and spread its ash when Venus was in Scorpio (ala bio dynamics), I have a gopher skull mobile that I move around the garden and have put their little heads on little sticks. I also understand that there is some ancient Mayan text, that still needs to be translated, that deals with gophers in the garden...

For us caging is the only way ...and they still get in! then we trap them with a "Black Hole" brand gopher trap and mulch the hole with their furry little bodies. Ahhh... killing in the name of vegetables. We haven't eaten any, too much work for such little meat (... pickling might be an option)... but we have given them to the chickens to convert them to poultry and eggs...

If your friend is near San Luis Obispo, California, have them stop by. FYI we have a design course scheduled this fall.

Larry Santoyo
earthflow.com



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.

=====
John Schinnerer, MA
-------------------------
- Eco-Living -
Cultural & Ecological Designing
Food - Water - Shelter - Community - Technology
john@eco-living.net
http://eco-living.net

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