Making Gopher baskets

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Around here, every yard needs to have one or more lilac bushes: Because that is one of the few flowers that are in bloom on decoration day. And without lilacs what would we put on the family headstones? Some years the iris are blooming, and some years peony, but lilacs are the only thing that can really be counted on.

But my yard is overwhelmed by lilacs. Something like 60 bushes. That's too many, even with sentimentality and family nostalgia tugging at my psyche.

The yard also has about 30 rose bushes which is about right, because they form a hedge along a property line.

It's been around 40 years since I saw a gopher in the garden. We used to flood irrigate. That sure would get them moving!!! But I'm in a different micro-climate now that doesn't favor gophers.

[oxbowfarm]

Man Holly, I can't believe you have to use those just to have beans. People make fun of my rocks but I'll take em over gophers.

[12540dumont]

Now you know why I wanted the rocks!

I'm going to buy Leo a holster pellet gun. Yesterday, this one was sniggering at me. I feel like I'm in a Caddy Shack re-run.

I don't basket every bean, but I put one every 7 feet in the row, so that if the gopher goes wild, I don't lose all of one variety.

Gophers do not eat corn or sorghum, nor any of the grains. I have not found a legume that they do not like. Last year the cat drug a gopher out of a squash. If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't believe it. The gopher had tunneled into a squash from the bottom. The cat just kept staring at this pumpkin and padding at it. Leo rolled it over and the cat nicked the gopher out of the squash. Leo wanted me to cut the gopher part off and eat the rest, but I refused.

Lips that touch gopher will not touch mine. Send rocks. Perhaps I can just bean one.

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[Drahkk]

Holly, have you tried the poison free oxidizing smoke bombs? We don't have gophers here, but a lot of moles and voles, and a lot of folks swear those are the best product for the purpose. You just light one and put it in the tunnel, then cover the hole. Watch the area for smoke coming up and cover those holes too. It just removes all the oxygen from the tunnels and makes instant fertilizer out of the rodents. And no poison, so no harm if the cat finds a dead one.

MB

[12540dumont]

I have tried just about everything, I have 4 cats. Of course 3 are lazy males....All the sons of the one cat who does hunt.

Every once in awhile I trek to Chinatown and buy a bushel of smoke bombs. You know, the kind you used as a kid on the 4th of July. They annoy the gophers some.

Leo's been burning sulfur to annoy them, but they just keep moving to a new spot and eating something else.

I'm waiting for David to convince the Lowrance Company to make me a gopher finder. If they can find fish...why can't they find gophers?

If I know where he is, I can get him.

[bunkie]

great thread holly! we have moles and voles, (and hubs saw a HUGE ground squirrel yesterday, thought we got rid of them, and has a nest by our stream)... and when they tunnel in the garlic (or any veg) they just chew off anything in their way, leaving a trail of dead galic plants. i was thinking of making a few baskets or one, the length of a row.