Controlling Moles and Gophers in the Garden

Moles are insectivores who live on earthworms, slug eggs and other garden pests, rarely do they eat vegetation of any type. They can be identified by their raised tunnels that that disrupt the surface of the garden or lawn. Gophers live deep within the ground and may be identified by the characteristic mounds of dirt they make as they tunnel through the earth. Gophers are vegetarians and are particularly destructive to beds of carrots, turnips and beets. Their unsightly mounds also can ruin the appearance of a lawn. Possibly the best way to prevent an invasion of gophers or moles is to prevent them from entering your garden of lawn in the first place by burying a two foot deep strip if fine mess hardware cloth around the perimeter of the garden or lawn. This method mole and gopher control is labor intensive but fool-proof. With respect to the garden, I believe moles do more good than harm and make no effort to exclude them. If they invade the lawn I use a hose end sprayer filled with 1/4th castor oil, a few drops of dish detergent and water to spray the lawn every three weeks until they leave the area. Gophers are a different matter. These ingenious creatures can ruin a row of carrots overnight. My garden is situated in a large open hillside and the gophers invariably attempt to make their way from the surrounding wooded area to the garden each spring. My goal is to eradicate these destructive creatures before they enter the garden. Gopher control at Chateau Merrill is a two step process, somewhat labor intensive but absolutely fool-proof! The first step, the labor intensive one, is to identify the gopher hole. This is done by digging around a gopher mound or hill until you locate an open gopher tunnel. You are now home free! Simply place a handful of a poison grain, such as Gopher Getter, in the hole and cover the hole with a rock or small segment of waste lumber. This works every time, I guarantee it! Now to simplify your life next year, don't forget step two. New gophers will attempt to enter your garden next year and, if possible, they will use a tunnel made by a previous gopher to do it. To prevent this from happening, after about three weeks remove the rock or segment of lumber used to cover the tunnel in which you placed the poison grain. Purchase a highway flare; light the flare and position it as far down the hole as possible; finally, cover the hole with dirt. Purchase the shortest flares available because they are easier to introduce into the gopher tunnels. Gophers do not like the smell produced by a highway flare and will not enter a tunnel so treated. Over the years I have tried many different ways to rid my garden of gophers and, other than buried wire mesh, this is the only gopher eradication program that works. If, this gopher killing methodology does not appeal to you there are many other methods to rid you garden of gophers, in my experience, all of which are less effective. Bob Tanem, the host of KFSOs Sunday morning talk show, In The Garden, recommends that you pour liquid fish emulsion down the gopher's hole to drive the critters form the garden. I prefer to kill them before they get to the garden but, if one does find its way through my defenses, I will use poison grain to kill it and the fumes from a flare to keep its relatives at bay.