Gopher 2.0

I got my garden all cleaned up, fixed 4 raised beds, converted a conventional bed to a hugel beet which includes hardware cloth at ground level. I'm almost done planting seedlings and seeds. So close to going to the next project.
BUT... I noticed mounds of soil on the top of one of my two conventional beds, and I pepper plant is gone. I really hate gophers!!!  I'm going to try to pot as much as possible.  Try to save as much of the soil as I can. Even though it was a regular raised bed it was filled hugel style, and the soil is amazing.  Since I have to re do it I might as well go all the way and make it a hugel beet.  It's a good year to do it because a wind storm forced us to severely prune our walnut tree, and a plum planted (os squirrel) right next to our apricot tree. We didn't notice until it started to produce fruit. It was killing the apricot, so we cut it down. So I have a ton of wood.  The bad part is I have some nice looking plants in that bed, some like peas that probably won't transplant well.  I also have so many other projects that should already be done.  So I'm totally bummed.  I don't normally ask my kids to help, but I did this time. Hopefully it will be done quickly.

Jen, your growies might not like the walnut wood - was it Black walnut or one of the not quite so Introverted types? If you use it, I'd try to make sure it's very deep down.

I am soooo... glad I don't have gophers. The rats do enough damage!

Thanks Jay. It's English walnut, and I have used it a lot with no adverse effect. I do try to dig a 2' hole. The walnut goes into the bottom. The raised bed portion is 16" above the ground.  So that's about 3' between the walnut and the top of the bed.
When I built my hugelkulture I was worried about the walnut. I filled 1/2 with walnut and 1/2 with almond. Over the years I never saw any difference between the sides.  
I appreciate your knowledge and advice though thank you.

Jen, sorry to hear about your gophers.  They are an ongoing thing for me, I've even lost native plants to them.  

I've mentioned in these forums that I use pee sticks in the tunnels.  

I keep about 8" long,  sticks as thick as two fingers in a tall milk carton of pee at least overnight.  If I've run out of those and need to fill the tunnels anyway,  I find the main tunnel and pour pee into it, then fill it in both directions with about 3" branches as far as they will go in.  

Things I keep track of: where the main tunnel is, and the more shallow side tunnels that come off at 45-degree angles is important, where the air holes are, and where the burroughs are where there are quite a few holes.

When there are mounds being created, that's the easiest thing to dig in the direction it goes down (at a 45 degree angle, feel with your finger where it gives easily) until you get to the main tunnel.  

The mound dirt, as long as it's fresh and damp,  is some of the best dirt to put into a raised bed, full of fungi and good stuff.  I grew the best tomatoes the year I went around collecting it.

The main thing is to plant gopher-proof plants around perennials, elephant garlic, daylilies, asparagus.  All of these are drought tolerant and are long-lived.  I don't plant anything, even fruit trees, without putting at least 2 garlic cloves and one asparagus plant on either side of it.  Garlic is great around tomatoes.  Don't harvest the garlic, leave it there.  When it multiplies, dig it up and transplant the little bulbils elsewhere.

I just noticed that at the base of a raised bed voles/mice have dug under the bottom edge in several places and are disappearing underneath it.  So it isn't just gophers.   If I decide to keep this one, and not sure I will, I'll surround it with a band of 1 foot wide chicken wire, bent out 6" at the bottom, a couple inches of 3/4" rock holding down the chicken wire to the ground.  

I catch mice and voles with a spinning can suspended on a straight piece of coat hanger over a 5 gallon bucket, a stake or piece of fence board as a ramp up, tiny bit of peanut butter on the ramp, a chunk about the size of my finger tip smeared onto the middle of the can to it won't make the can spin to where the peanut butter is on the bottom.  It doesn't take much.  I catch dozens each week in three buckets in various protected locations.

I've also had good luck with putting the little ramp down on the ledge just above where the coat hanger comes out.

Thanks Cristo, I appreciate all the info. I've gotten so I don't plant anything in the ground without some kind of cage. My raised beds get hardwire cloth at ground level (ideally I would line the hole with it, but that's too expensive) then cement blocks go around the edges, or if it's a wooden bed I staple the hardwire cloth to the bottom of the bed. After this bed I will have only one bed left that doesn't have hardwire cloth. I would like to just do that one too, but there's a lot going on, and I just don't have time, so I hope the weed cloth on the bottom of that bed keeps the gophers out. If it doesn't, it's a 4'X4' bed, and I can deal with not having it if needed.
If I plant not in a bed I make a cage out of chicken wire. I know it will rust out in a couple of years, but my hope is what I plant this way will be established enough after a couple of years to withstand a gopher attack, and not attract a gopher at that point.  I will definitely be planting garlic, and asparagus too.
I will try what ever I can since I live between two orchards. I will always have to deal with gophers.
Thanks 😊

I've even had to double up the chicken wire on the baskets because they seem to be making it out of thinner and thinner wire, and the really determined gophers and voles can push right through a 1" hole, especially if running drippers and that's the only place the soil is wet, they know exactly where to go.  

And I forgot to mention, daffodils and narcissus bulbs are good, too.  Narcissus seem to double and triple faster.   You can ring the exterior of a raised bed with them.

I have also cut old, cracked  plastic garbage cans in half, side to side, so I've got two approx. 22" high tubes (?), (taller than 18")  sink those into a big hole and plant roses  in those.  I planted a climbing rose in one of those 10 years ago and they never went under the edge.  

I've started drilling extra holes in the bottom of 2 gallon pots and sinking those into the ground with dahlia bulbs, geraniums, annual flowers or shallow-rooted perennials.  I wouldn't put food plants in those containers, but they do a good job of protecting  landscape plants.

I managed to get my bed rebuilt, and refilled thanks to my kids helping me out. This evening I was planting in my rebuilt bed, and I noticed the gopher moved to the last unprotected bed. I really don't have time to redo it. It's small, and my daughter got it started for me.   Oh well once it's done, all the beds will have gopher protection.  I will always have to deal with gophers, but at least not in my main veggie garden.

If it really gets bad and you just don't want an ongoing thing, I've switched my greenhouse to large No. 5 (food grade) plastic totes.  Gophers are a thing of the past in that zone.   I painted the top 6" inside and out to protect from the sun.  Drill a single hole 2 or 3 inches  up from the bottom of the tote so it will hold water, line the bottom with rotting branches, (branches you can break with your foot) fill in with soil and compost halfway, then put pithy wood that roots can get into, fill the rest of the way.  Little roof rats still manage to find a way in on occasion, but I've got that spinning can bucket that they fall for, and the mice.  I fish the dead mice out with a strainer and leave them for the ravens, whom I just love, and they love the fresh mice.  

That red arrow is pointing to the hole on either end that is 2 1/2 inches up from the bottom.