garden news-the bane of our existence

GARDEN NEWS-THE BANE OF OUR EXISTENCE

i never understood bill murrays obsession with gophers in the movie caddyshack until i started gardening here
the first two years i gardened in our community garden i had no problems until this last year
it seem to explode
was it covid 19 i wondered


    nature.org
here is the chubby cheeked varmint that bill was after
it can destroy a vegetable garden
yes
its just like on the cartoon shows where the gopher pulls the whole plant down the hole and all you have left is a big ole hole


    wikepedia 
here is another varmint that we have in the garden also
its called a vole
i think of it as a cross between a mole and a rat
it tunnels underground and eats the roots
it also will go out on top of the ground and eat the plants
gophers are usually more skittish about being out of their tunnels
just like in caddyshack

i never had to deal with either of these in all my previous years of gardening in texas
i now understand bills obsession with these varmints

so the goal is to capture them somehow
yes they dont survive capturing
so far togd 10 + vs  gophers ?
so far togd 20+  vs  voles ?

there seems to be an endless supply of both gophers and voles

so
here is my approach now


i built these gopher cages out of 1/2 inch wire cut 2 ft by 1 ft then rolled into a sphere like an ice cream cone with the bottom wired shut
it works great
however
i have over 20 of them in my garden 
and
it leaves a lot of the bed space unprotected
so
i went to plan two
commonly used in raised beds and smaller gardens around here


i went to our local ace store and got this gopher wire that is 4 ft x 25 ft
it looks like chicken wire or aviary wire but it has a thicker gauge wire and it is double galvanized to slow down rust ie it lasts longer


my garden beds are 3 ft x 8 ft
i have 8 of them

first i dug down over 12 inches deep
man i have rich garden soil
i laid the wire down so that around 6 inches were lapped over the side of the beds
i told my wife she it looked like i was going to bury someone
i am i thought to myself 
a grave for gophers
i lapped another 6 inches on each end of the bed
then
i walked inside the grave so it fit like you were wrapping a box
then
i started adding back my soil
but
i took the opportunity to refurbish my soil
i added
a layer of mulch
a layer of garden soil
a layer of compost
a layer of chipped vegetation from our garden 
a layer of chicken compost saved from our chicken coop
then
i filled the last layers with my garden soil
covering it with a layer of compost
sounds like rich soil to me 
right

then i flattened back the 6 inches of wire around the edges and covered them with these native sandstones

then
i replanted my squash plant back into this new soil minus its gopher cage
i covered the bed with pine straw to hold in moisture
we wont get rain here probably until next october

take that you voles and gophers
bill murray would be proud

now
i have to do 7 more of these so as a bed becomes available i will do each bed this way
all i have to do is protect the plants above ground until they get large enough to survive on their own

oh 
what we go through to have a garden

the organicgreen doctor