permaculture

[Santoyo & Associates <santoyo@earthflow.com>]

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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