Step 4: Using Barriers

• The use of underground barriers is recommended in controlling gophers/moles around your home for long term control. Use aviary wire that is woven tightly enough to keep the gophers from going through and strong enough to resist their chewing (no larger then 1/4in mesh). Place the wire underground, around an area where you plan to plant a garden or flower beds. Also available: root guard baskets. These are pre-made gopher baskets made from  wire mesh. Many sizes available or you can make your own.  Try

• Resources from Peaceful Valley Farm and Garden Supplies...  tell em Andy sent Ya!

  • Chase Mole & Gopher Repellent - Liquid Concentrate (gallon)

  • Salas Wire Gopher Trap

   

• Other homemade barriers are bottles placed into the ground. Tall wine bottles are great for this purpose! Just dig a trench and place bottles standing up as a barrier around your garden, etc. They see their reflection and run away plus they can't dig through that. I have also used anything from wood to rocks to broken glass as barriers. Also, use plants that gophers naturally abhor. Garlic and onion plants are avoided by gophers/moles and make excellent barriers. Other plants gophers hate are Herbs such as Tansy, Peppermint, Spearmint and Rosemary.

Step 5: Encouraging Predators

• The use of animals is the best way to naturally control gophers. If you have animals, the use of poisons is not recommended. Cats and Dogs will chase gophers, and sometimes eat them. Other predators that will eat your gophers for dinner are King snakes, Gopher snakes, Hawks, Coyotes and Owls. Try buying a Gopher snake or King snake from your local pet store and releasing it down the gopher hole! A king snake is also a natural enemy of the rattlesnake. Try building a nesting home for owls and other birds.

Step 6: Using Plants:

Bulbs as a barrier

• Almost all bulbs are toxic to underground pests such as gophers and moles. Plant right next to each other all the way around your property. Try narcissus bulbs which are excellent for this as they will naturalize and grow every year without you having to replant them every year. I also use socity garlic.

Step 7: Using Sound Waves:

• There are many ways to use sound to tell the gophers that you want them to leave. One way is to place a speaker on top of the ground on the area you don't want them and play it real loud! But what really works better then that is to buy or make your own clanker! What is a clanker? Its a wind driven device that can be made to look like any thing but that as the wind turns the blades, it also clicks or makes a sound which is transmitted straight down through the pipe into the gopher tunnel. Works at first but they will get use to it. In my next book I will show you how to make a small radio into a big gopher remover! OK OK.. Just buy yourself a small battery powered radio and place into gopher hole. Allow to play until battery runs out. Replace as needed.

• Go'pher It Battery Gopher Getters are placed into the ground to protect vegetable gardens and small lawns. They give off ultra-high sounds to drive gophers and moles away. Covers a 1000 square foot area. This product offers a safe method of repelling rodents (gophers, moles, ground squirrels, and pocket mice) with no damage or danger to the ecological balance. Go'pher It does not kill but repels.  try Peaceful Valley Farm Supplies

• See also UnderGround Exterminator

andy lopez

The Invisible Gardener

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