Gopher attack

[strawhat]

I'm afraid a Gopher is messing with my vegetable garden.
(mounds of mud appeared in the garden and there are no moles where I live).
does anyone have an idea how to fight them off in an elegant manner? I read there are some plants that repel them. does anyone have any experience with that?
(no chemicals please)


thanks

[opabinia51]

Black pepper seems to work well for repelling rodents. I am not up to speed on plants that repel them though.

Try googling Plants that repel gophers and see what you can find.

[strawhat]

thanks

black pepper - do you mean the plant (in which case -to be planted beneath the vegetables or surrounding them?) or ground black pepper?

[opabinia51]

Ground black pepper is what I was thinking about. Though, you might also try the plant. Tell us how that works because it would be a long term solution.

Also, I'm not sure if it would work with gophers but, we have used these little 1 foot high fences to keep certain pests (mainly the dog) away from impatients and other flowers.

Even though, she is a Springer Spaniel, it seems to work. This makes no sense to me because the dog can jump from a sitting position up to my eye level without thinking about it but, I'm not one to argue about a method that works.

[strawhat]

I might try the ground pepper thing, though it might be technically difficult (to keep the pepper there for more than a few days).
if I have any breakthroughs I'll let you know.

thanks.

by the way, I have a 3 foot fence surrounding my garden - the dog won't think of it but the cats... nothing stops them

[opabinia51]

Yes, cats are usually more ingenius than dogs. Nothing short of a wall of flames will stop a cat. I guess that is why I like them so much. They are just so darn smart.

Though, sometimes I wonder about my mom's cat. I think he might have been dropped on his head during child birth .