Gophers!

I walked out to my pretty garden this morning to discover either a gopher or a mole had dug a huge hole in the back of my garden, covering some of my squash plants with a heaping pile of dirt! Any tips to rid of this creature?

Reply to
Jackee
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Tips? Sure! Get a Rodenator, and you'll deal with those pesky burrowing rodents once and for all. It's humane, too.

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a google search on "Rodenator" for more information.

Ray Drouillard

Reply to
Ray

the device was that this is a joke, right?

You have to watch the video to see what this thing does. It's for real.

Unfortunately I have more of a groundhog and squirrel problem this year.

Happy Gardening!

---pete---

Reply to
---pete---

A huge hole under the squash sounds more like a groundhog (AKA woodchuck). Not a promising sign for your garden. Now is the time that the young ones are starting out on their own. They are much easier to trap than the grown ones.

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Reply to
Pat Kiewicz

According to that site they have closed their doors and filed for bankruptcy in 2003. At $1900 a pop I guess I can see why...

Reply to
Steve Calvin

I don't have a gopher problem, but that thing makes me *want* to have a gopher problem. If we had gopher problems around here, I would get one and hire myself out as a gopher exterminator. Going to work ought to be fun.

Ray

Reply to
Ray

ya know...sometimes i just don't feel like being humane to these critters (which includes moles, voles, gophers, ANY burrowing 4-legged bugger)...like when they ate 450 lily bulbs last year just cuz the little bastards couldn't use their long gnashing front teeth to bite their way through the 4 inch-thick ice sheet covering the gardens. it's at times like that that i feel like...like....ooooh!!!!! (sniff) but i just can't. (soB)

Reply to
<bluesalyxx

Reply to
jim book

On Mon, 5 Jul 2004 19:03:04 -0600 in , "Jackee" graced the world with this thought:

There's a euphorbia commonly called "gopher plant" that you can put around the area, the gophers go to the neighbors' house.

Reply to
belly

Over the last 15 years I have dealt with hundreds of gophers on my half acre lot. There are only two surefire ways to get rid of them.

The first is gopher traps. You must use two traps. About $5 in any feed or farm store.

Find the tunnel by pushing a long rod or screwdriver into the ground between two mounds until you feel it give. That will locate the tunnel. Use post hole diggers to dig down and expose the tunnel. You may have to use the screwdriver to scrape dirt away from the sides to locate the holes. There will be at least two, one from each direction. Place a trap in each and cover big hole with leaves or something that will let a little light in. Be sure to tie the traps to some sort of stake (tomato stakes work well). A big gohper can carry a trap off or into the tunnel.

The second is to expose the tunnel in the same way and put a couple of tablespoons of Drano (lye) in the tunnel and cover back up. They get it on their feet and it kills them when they lick it off. If you do this make sure to be very careful if you have pets. Don't want any exposed that they can get hold of.

Moles are a different story and use a completely different trap, a sharpshooter type and more expensive.

You flatten the run (seen on top of ground) and place the trap over the flattens spot. When the mole comes along and pushes the run back up it will set the trap. Much more difficult than gophers but effective with practice.

Since you are seeing dirt mounds on top of the ground around your plants, I would bet it is gophers. They look like big fire ant mounds.

Bruce

Reply to
Bruce Yates

i've tried the chewing gum route...no success. tried moth balls. (yawn)

a method they use in the back beyond hills of central oregon is..you go to a thrift store and buy the old type of radio (with transistors) and bring it home. fill the radio with the proper batteries and then tune it to a station that isn't there...in other words, set the dial to "white sound." then tie a rope or string or even dental floss to the radio and lower it down into the hole. the "white noise" is supposed to not only drive 'em crazy but also drive them far away enough from your property that even your neighbour's gophers, moles, voles, ANY burrowing critter away!!!

i gotta tell you...it sure worked in oregon...doesn't seem to work here in new hamster, though (sniff); perhaps the east coast critters are enured to the sound??

Reply to
<bluesalyxx

I had a horrible problem with groundhogs. I tried all of the tricks I could find and no luck. They kept digging under my fence and into the garden. Out of frustration, I cut several hundred stakes about a foot long and drove them into the ground at the fence line leaving a 1" gap between. They would dig a while then move on, dig a while... After a few days, they just gave up. That was over a year ago.

Last weekend I started to notice that something was eating my lettuce. The next day it was me beans. I couldn't figure out how they were getting in. No holes in the fence and no tunnels under the fence. The third day I noticed that the tops of my tomatoes were eaten, and they are 4' high. I then noticed a pile of deer droppings. Great, after 2+ years with a 4' high fence, the deer decide to jump over it. So, two evenings ago, I put up a 7-1/2 foot high deer fence around my 30 x 45 garden.

Sometimes I wonder why I even try to grow anything! Between the cost of materials and time, it's probably cheaper to just but the veggies. However, at harvest time (assuming I have anything left by then), I will know it was worth it.

Reply to
Al Reid

I have a big problem with gophers all over my 2.5 acre lot. Most o this acreage is wild. I have not obsessed about them until lately, a they have been slowly advancing toward a landscaped turf area around m home. The mounds are now only a few feet way from the turf. I bough traps recently and tried to follow the instructions in placing them. However, the tunnels don't seem to be wide enough to fit the trap inside. I tried hollowing out enough so that I could force them in but the narrow tunnel size makes this a very tight squeeze. Anyway, covered the excavation with a board and waited. After a few days i the ground I uncovered them to find the entire area I had excavate buried in dirt that the varmits had pushed up into it, and the trap were unsprung. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks in advance

-- rfcdvc45

Reply to
rfcdvc45

You really should check them several times a day. Every now and then that also happens to me. Sometimes I put traps in the two tunnels only to figure out they had maybe three and came in through the third. Just have to keep trying. I had one just friday that I had been trying to trap for two days. Tunnels were really small so I figured he must be a little one. I finally figured out the highest point of his system and put a garden hose in and flooded. Luckily after about 15 minutes he had to come out and a shovel did the trick. This won't always work.

You have to be persistant. New gophers will come in and take over tunnel systems of the dead ones. I have always placed the dead ones back in the tunnel and that seems to discourage them for a while.

Try the Drano if all else fails. Just be extra careful if you have pets.

Bruce

Reply to
Bruce Yates

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