Home and Garden: Getting rid of gophers

By CHUCK ANDERSON
Sentinel Correspondent

Even in the hospitable Monterey Bay Area climate, gardening isn’t all fun and games. Having a garden worth admiring requires some hand-to-hand combat.

Gardeners at various times have to battle dozens of insects, diseases and leafy pests eager to munch on prize petunias or crowd out gorgeous geraniums.

Local experts say the lion’s share of damage, however, can be traced to just three culprits. In Santa Cruz County gardens, the most common adversaries are gophers, snails and weeds. Left unchecked, any of these can devastate even the otherwise best-tended garden.

While each can be controlled, none can be eliminated permanently, according to authorities. Moreover, control is never a one-strike operation. Management methods vary by pest but, as in surfing or cooking, gaining the upper hand requires consistent practice.

Voracious vegetarian: the pocket gopher
"Of all the garden pests, gophers can be the most infuriating," said Thomas Wittman of Santa Cruz, an organic farmer and gopher-control trainer. "The gopher is an opportunist and a vegetarian. It just can’t resist fresh plantings."

Gophers forage underground by digging shallow tunnels, then devour roots, bulbs and sometimes entire plants by pulling them into the tunnel. Stories are legion of gardeners spending a day planting a bed of bulbs and fresh, tender annuals, only to return the next morning to find nearly everything gone.

The sure sign that gophers have discovered your garden is one or more golfball-sized holes, perhaps accompanied by small dirt mounds with the faint outline of a hole in the top of each mound. Conversely, raised tunnels or larger holes are signs of moles, rats or other rodents, Wittman noted.

Because gophers are so numerous and widespread, the array of products manufactured to combat them is large. You can try to poison, gas, trap or repel them. Wittman has found trapping to be the most effective method.

So has Jonathan Turner, 10, of Watsonville, who has trapped 109 of the furry critters since February when he started helping his father, Michael Turner, control gophers on their 10-acre family farm.

"I’m basically against poisons," said Michael. "I’ll turn to them as a last resort, but you just don’t want that stuff around. Sometimes the poisoned gophers will come up to the surface before they die, and we have dogs." As a result, he taught Jonathan about the Macabee trap, which spears the gopher in its tunnel with a pair of heavy sharpened wires.

Jonathan then reburies the executed culprits.

Invented in Los Gatos by Zephyr Macabee, a barber, in the late 1800s, Macabee traps still are made by the family owned business, headed by Joyce Macabee Ridgely of La Selva Beach, Mary Macabee Barnes of Santa Cruz and 10 others. The trap, retailing at around $8 at garden centers and hardware stores, is a best-seller throughout the West.

Chuck Anderson can be reached at gardenguy@znet.com.

Thomas Wittman


If you go

WHAT: Non-toxic control of gophers, moles and voles will be explained by Thomas Wittman, founder of Gophers Limited.

WHERE: Louise Cain Gatehouse at the UC Santa Cruz Farm. Parking is next to the Blacksmith Shop.

WHEN: Saturday from 10 a.m. to noon.

COST: Entry fee is $15 or $10 for members of Friends of the UC Farm and Garden.

INFORMATION: Call 459-3240 to reserve a space.

You can find this story online at:
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2003/May/15/style/stories/12style.htm
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