GOPHERS/MOLES

[Pitchfork]

I'll sure give it a try. My yard looks like a plowed field about half the time. Folks around here use gassers and poisons and water hoses, caster beans, you name it. Sometimes I feel like Bill Murry in "Caddyshack". Nothing seems to slow them down. So thanks for the info.
Mike

 

[Beekissed]

Mom used moth balls in their tunnels with good results. She was overrun with moles but now has no new tunnels and the old tunnels are falling in.

 

[countryatheart]

I have also heard of putting Juicy Fruit gum in the tunnels. My Dad used to trap gophers when I was a kid. I don't know if you can still buy gopher traps or not. He would clean out the tunnel, slide the set trap into it, and cover it with an old pot or bucket so the tunnel stayed dark. He also had a chain attached to the trap that he had staked to keep the gopher from getting snagged and pulling his trap down into the tunnel.

 

[seminolewind]

I had a gopher last year that was making mounds all over my lawn. Nothing worked.
Gophers are most active early morning, 7-9. I would gently uncover a hole in an active run, get a chair and sit and wait. Sure enough, a head peeked out. The challange is to figure out which way is behind him, quickly stab him or behind him with a pitch fork. It took a few mornings, but I did get him. And that was that.

 

[Pitchfork]

I know folks will think I am making this up but I tried the moth balls and came out the next day to find all the balls thrown back out of the hole. I have also tried traps and posions and I have got one here and there but you could never tell that the population was decreased. All the books say to first identify an active run. You do this by stamping the run down and then come back and keep checking to see if the run is pushed back up. I have done this literally dozens of times and have never had a run pushed back up. Instead there will be a new run pushed up to one side or the other of the old run. I wasn't kidding when I say I feel like Bill Murry in "Caddyshack". My golphers are smart little critters. I have a neighbor who waits them out with a 410 and he swears that is the only way to thin them out, but I just don't have the time to do that. Another neighbor sits out early in the morning and late in the evening, she says late evening is the best time and she keeps a Golpher gasser at the ready. When she sees one throwing up dirt she runs to the hole and shoves in the gasser, but I really don't think she has fewer golphers than I do, but she has a lot more fun. ha!
The battle continues, just an hour ago I was out hoeing the garden and I noticed one cabbage plant shaking a little oddly.
I walked over and then noticed a couple of leaves looked limp. I pulled up the leaves and sure enough the stalk was chewed just about in half and there was a small hole hidden by the leaves.
That makes 4 out of twenty plants. A 20% tax imposed by a Golpher, what an insult.
Mike

 

[piecemaker]

what do you do with the gum