garden news-the bane of our existence

GARDEN NEWS-THE BANE OF OUR EXISTENCE

mammalwatching.com 

if you look closely this guy needs some dental work
this guy you probably recognize from the movie caddyshack
bill murray tried his best to eliminate him from the movie
he never did
they always win it seems

they almost won in our pumpkin patch this year
we lost about 25% of our pumpkin plants to this varmint
it almost single handedly destroyed our pumpkin patch this year

we finally called the gopher guy
he looks like an australian outback guy 
he takes his job seriously
im sure he is a bill murray fan and has watched caddyshack several times
he has that bill murray look in his eye

he is a local expert on the gophers
he set out several traps like those below 
using mainly the blackhawk one
then
he has a portable machine that emits carbon monoxide into the tunnels

after a few days we noticed the gopher attacks dropped significantly 
enough that the pumpkin crop was able to mostly grow without too much gopher destruction
we did keep out a vigilance on using the traps

there is not another good way to eliminate them
poisons etc are out of the question

remember its the gophers or the veggies
save the gophers
you dont grow veggies

we have hawks they keep the eye on our gardens and we recently added an owl box but are still awaiting an owl to set up camp
these guys are natural predators of gophers

we chose the non chemical control methods


ace hardware.com
this is the nighthawk gopher trap
its the one we use a lot in our garden
we have some success with it
im always real cautious when i set them
remember there is no good way to do this

ace hardware.com
this is the macabee gopher trap
we use it some in our garden but i tend not to use it since im afraid i will impel my finger with it


ace hardware.com
recently i was contacted by the local owner of the local hardware store here in santa barbara telling me about these gopher sonic spikes
he has used them on his property and has had no gophers for the last 8 months
he gave me 4 to use in our garden
the range is a 90 ft diameter
i plan to place them at the four corners of our community garden where we raise produce to donate to shelters and food banks and the organic soup kitchen
this section of our garden sits in the middle of our garden fenced area
this allows coverage for all of the fenced in area with these sonic spikes
they emit a low level buzzing i guess that just drives the gophers away
i guess its like being tortured
they move away from the annoying sound
like a car horn that just honks and honks and wont go away
it runs off  3 d batteries that need to be replaced every 6 months
his has been working for 8 months without needing to replace the batteries

i sure hope this works since it makes it easier to just drive them crazy so they will stay out of our garden

we sure hope this works
the other methods i dont really like to use
but
we have to do something or we wont havent any veggies to donate

thanks for the gopher sonic spikes

the organicgreen doctor