Gardening Report February 16, 2022: Gopher Baroque

The %#@&ing gopher/s are back.

We had a bad problem with them last year, one I thought we’d solved by digging an 18-inch deep trench all around our enclosure and extending the chicken wire barrier down below their normal operating level.

We succeeded in keeping them out, though there was one infuriating moment when I found a gopher hole outside our enclosure and while I was looking at it a cheeky gopher popped its head out and shovel more dirt out.

I responded by shoving a hose down the hole and turning the water on full.  It ran for a couple of minutes they burst through the ground about 6 feet away so I turned it off.

Gophers, y’see, are sneaky li’l bastids.

Their tunnels and warrens don’t run straight and level.

Periodically they put little airlocks in their tunnels to keep water from rain or flood or angry gardeners from washing them out.

Instead of running like this…

______________

…their warrens look like this…

_____n_____n_____

…or even this:

___r-------n___

So flooding them out is a challenge.*

Nonetheless, I tried…

We found not one, not two, but three gopher holes inside our enclosure today.

We’d see evidence of gopher activity a month earlier, but they hadn’t broken the surface and when we poked into the mound of dirt with a rod we couldn’t find a tunnel so we assumed it was some by product of the cover crop / self-mulching experiment we tried.

Now we know they’re back.

I shoved our hose in all three holes, expecting water to eventually come out of one of the other two, but instead the water ran for several minutes with no evidence any of the holes were connected.

The one in the picture eventually eroded away, leading me to think it’s close to the terminus of that particular tunnel.

The other two took gallon after gallon after gallon.

I’m guessing the water reached the airlocks the gophers put in their warrens and when it did, it slowed the flow enough for the water to be absorbed deep under the surface, not continue flowing along the length of the tunnel.

The community garden has a gopher killing expert, so we’re sicing him on these little pests.

© Buzz Dixon

*  I would, if I could, opt for the oxygen + propane gas + spark plug solution since that results in a visually satisfying explosion, but due to the fact the area is jam packed with other people’s gardens and enclosures, probably not a good idea…