How Do You Get Gophers
Gophers are found in North and Central America, usually in areas with sturdy soil thats rich in moisture and clay. Much of the United States is hospitable to gophers, however, the western two-thirds of the country, as well as states in the Southeast prove to be popular habitats.
Gophers feed on plants, fruits, and vegetables, and are attracted to yards featuring lots of plant life, particularly alfalfa, carrots, dandelions, grasses, potatoes, radishes, tree bark, and tulips.
How To Locate Active Gopher Burrows
Fresh mounds of soil dispersed all across your yard are a clear indication of gophers residing underground. Their burrows comprise of a 6 to 12 inches deep main tunnel/runway, where they live, and several lateral tunnels plugged with soil. Get a basic idea about their tunnel system below:
Finding the runway is important before you can try any of the methods to drive the gopher away. To locate it, insert a metal probe about 8 to 12 inches deep into one of the mounds mentioned above. When your probe reaches the main tunnel, you will feel it drop about 2 inches more into the open space. Penetrate it further to make sure you find the main tunnel.
What Are The Options To Kill Gophers
One natural control method is ideal, but not suitable for many people. If its viable for you, these guys are great, and they will work for food!
Hawks and owls, snakes, cats and some dogs can be all that you need. In large open areas, promoting these predators to kill gophers makes sense.
However, for most homeowners, your choices will be:
- Traps
- Professional help
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Eucalyptus Keeps Gophers Out
A notoriously strong smell, eucalyptus leaves are often used as decorative wreaths or in flower arrangements for their beauty and aromatic properties.
Gophers sensitive sense of smell makes eucalyptus a good candidate to repel gophers. Any plant that is very strong-scented will be off-putting to a gopher, and eucalyptus is one of the most strong-smelling plants you can find.
One of the easiest ways to make use of this plants repellent properties is to use pure eucalyptus oil. You can make a DIY spray that gophers will hate by adding 10-15 drops of eucalyptus oil like Majestic Pure Eucalyptus Essential Oil to one cup of water.
Spray this wherever you are noticing gopher holes or disturbed areas in your yard.
Diaotec Solar Powered Sonic Spike Gopher Repeller
This sonic spike from Diaotec emits vibration and buzzing sounds undetectable by humans but irritating to gophers every 25 seconds. This high frequency radiation signals to gophers that something dangerous may be nearby, and they should vacate the area quickly. This powerful repeller is solar powered and only requires four hours of sunlight to charge fully and when fully charged maintains the frequency continuously for 24 hours, seven days a week. It protects lawns up to 7,500 sq. ft. and comes with aluminum tubes that allow you to extend its length in the ground and protect it from water logging. This gopher solution is a completely chemical-free and humane response.
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Here Are Some Good Practices To Observe When Dealing With Mold And Mildew
- Ensure your home and garden is clean and dry as much as possible.
- If the materials infested with mold or mildew is movable, put them under the sun.
- Improve ventilation or air circulation in the rooms susceptible to mold infestation.
- Leaking pipes should be fixed promptly.
- Ensure you use a nose mask when cleaning out molds and mildew to avoid inhaling the fungi.
- Clean corners thoroughly as any mold left there could re-establish the infestation.
- Check out all odors because it is possible for molds to hide behind walls or wall coverings. Clean as appropriate.
- Baking soda and vinegar are good non-toxic alternatives to get to the root or hyphae of the mold.
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Barn Owl Nesting Boxes
Another way to control gopher populations on your property is to construct barn owl nesting boxes.
This isnt a quick fix, and it wont eradicate the gophers on your property. It can, however, help control the population of gophers and other pests over time.
Pros: Natural, organic, beneficial for the ecosystem
Cons: Long-term solution, will not eradicate gophers
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How To Prevent Snow Mold
In some ways this one is out of your hands because it depends on what you cant control: the weather. However, there are some lawn fungicides you can apply in late fall. Also, take pristine care of your lawn before the first snowfall by clearing all debris and cutting the grass short. Be sure to follow these additional tips for keeping your lawn healthy through winter.
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Rosemary & Thyme Keep Gophers Out
Rosemary and thyme are herbs often used in cooking. These bushy herbs can be planted directly into the ground or in pots or raised bed gardens.
While rosemary and thyme have a pleasant smell for humans, they are very strong and gophers do not like it because it overwhelms their sensitive sense of smell.
If you want to use rosemary or thyme to repel gophers you can use the plants themselves, or you can use an essential oil like Maple Holistics Undiluted Rosemary Essential Oil.Thyme also comes in an essential oil form.
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How To Get Rid Of Gophers In Your Garden And Yard
Gophers, also known as pocket gophers, can cause nuisance in your backyard and garden by building a wide network of tunnels underground while eating your fruits, vegetables, plants, and roots. To protect your flowers beds and fruit patches from getting destroyed, take immediate action to get rid of them for good.
Removing Gophers And Moles
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How Do I Remove Snow Mold From My Lawn
Heres the bad news: Once you see the snow mold, the damage is already done. Applying fungicidethat is, special chemicals that kill moldwont help at that point. The most you can do is gently rake the area to loosen up any matted snow mold grass and allow the soil to dry more quickly.
Once the weather warms up and the soil dries, youll have a better idea of how much grass has been affected. Remember that gray snow mold doesnt kill the roots, so your grass may bounce back from it. For any areas affected by pink snow mold, rake away dead grass and re-seed bare patches.
Use Repellents To Deter Moles And Gophers
Using castor oil is another method for how to get rid of moles and gophers in your yard. Castor oil will not kill them, but it will upset their digestive tracts. It will also make your lawn less appealing. For a homemade remedy, mix three parts castor oil and one part dish soap. Add four tablespoons of the mixture to a gallon of water. Soak the tunnels and entrances to evict the moles and soak the holes to evict gophers. Castor oil is one of the most effective home remedies to get rid of these animals. Skip the moth balls, tea tree oil and cayenne pepper for pest control they are not effective.
You can also purchase repellent granules or liquid repellents to get rid of gophers and moles. Most granules can be applied directly from the bag or from a spreader. Read your product label and follow the instructions.
To use a liquid repellent, hook your garden hose onto the bottle and spray it into the tunnels or holes as the label directs. Liquid repellents usually contain castor oil and other ingredients that are absorbed into the soil. The tunnels and holes will become less appealing to the animals and make their food sources distasteful, so theyll leave. These repellents typically last for several weeks. Most are safe to use around pets and on your lawn but, be safe, and read your product label to confirm.
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How To Prevent A Gopher Infestation
Since humans also prefer friable soil and land that does not become flooded, it is difficult to avoid getting gophers simply by selecting property not amenable to them.
However, gophers must eat. Like many pests, the key to avoiding an infestation is to deprive them of food sources as much as possible. Since they eat plants, keeping accessible roots and vegetation down to a minimum helps. And while it is difficult for plant lovers to make such a sacrifice, remember that one way to garden is in raised beds. One benefit of raised beds is that they can be gopher-proofed.
As long as you line the bottom of a raised bed with a suitable wire-mesh product, gophers will not be able to tunnel up to the plants in the raised beds to access the roots that they like to eat. While your average chicken wire may come to mind first, it is not as good for this job as other products meant to be underground. The problem is that if the galvanization on buried wire mesh isn’t thick enough, it will rust.
Happily, you can buy types of wire mesh made specifically for burial under raised beds to keep out tunneling critters. Some are even referred to as “gopher wire.” Regardless of what they are called, be sure to look for products made with stainless steel wire. A widely available product you can use to line the bottom of a raised bed and deprive gophers of access is “hardware cloth,” which isn’t really a cloth but a mesh.
And That Concludes This Lesson On Non
In closing, I think we can all agree that gophers are pretty frustrating little creatures. If youre struggling with gophers in your yard, Im sorry! I feel your pain. But I hope the tips and techniques we covered in this article will help get them under control, and keep the damage to your precious plants to a minimum! Do you have any other non-toxic gopher control tricks that we missed and work well for you? Please let us know in the comments below! If you found the information in this post to be valuable, please feel free to pin or share this article. Best of luck on your garden gopher-proofing adventures!
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Some Of These May Surprise You
One natural method to fighting gophers is to create noise in your yard
As it turns out, moles and gophers are sensitive to noises, especially loud noises.
So adding some natural noisemakers such as wind chimes in your yard is a good natural way to annoy these critters enough to leave your lawn. Whats more you can take this method a step further and introduce a radio into your yard.. But more on that later.
S And Tips To Stop Gopher Damagewithout Stressing Out
Kill gophers? The concept keeps some folks awake at night! It doesn’t have to be so hard!
How many plants have you lost? One? Even if you’ve only see one hole in your lawn this season, then its officially time to kill gophers!
Would you like to face this challenge with a new sense of optimism? You are smarter than they are. Want to prove it?
When its time to choose your weapon, do you know the techniques that make a certain approach more successful?
Are you aware of important safety concerns with some products? What are the alternatives?
Its time for action. Dont lose another plant. You can now use the best gopher killer for your situation, with the best results!
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How To Recognize And Prevent Yard Moles
The most crucial step in mole control is to prevent them from wanting to come into your yard in the first place. Recognizing mole activity in your yard is key to preventing an infestation of all types of destructive rodents.
- Coffee grounds
The easiest way to tell you that you have a mole problem is by inspecting your yard or gardens surface. Raised areas in the dirt that travel in paths and mounds are great indications of moles.
One of the great ways to stop moles from tunneling is to create an underground barrier by digging a two-foot trench around the area and filling it with rocks, wire, or concrete. If this is too much work, try using an ultrasonic device to emit a sonic pulse underground and drive them away.
Other useful methods are to use insecticides and beneficial nematodes to eliminate their food source. A yard without a buffet of worms, grubs, and larvae is not an ideal home for moles.
Some people swear by using mothballs to deter moles from the yard. However, they are more useful at keeping away moths. If youre looking for something cheap and simple, try using coffee grounds or granules by scattering them over the mole holes.
While moles have a certain cute quality about them, and they arent out to get your plants, its essential to keep them out of your yard to prevent it from being taken over by plant-eating and garden-destroying rodents.
Luckily, there are easy ways to take care of the issue by using a few simple steps.
Consider A Castor Oil Mixture
Groundhogs are not a new creature to the animal kingdom. They have been around for decades, and theyve caused just as many problems back in the day as they are causing you right now.
This is kind of a good thing for you because it means people have already been through this.
They know what works and what doesnt work. Many homeowners in the past have turned to castor oil as a natural repellent. Many gardeners and farmers swear by the stuff and its even currently on Minnesotas Department of Natural Resources list as one of the most effective ways for groundhog control.
What youll want to do is create a supple mixture of ½ coup of castor oil and 2 cups of water. Place the mixture in a garden hose sprayer attachment and spray it in the holes or the areas where you want to deter groundhogs.
Applying the spray at least two or three times after a light rain will likely yield the best and most effective results possible.
If you want a more potent blend, you can mix 1 cup of castor oil with 2 cups of oil soap and 1 ¼ cup of hot sauce. Once you are sure that youve deterred the critter, you can begin filling in the holes with gravel and/or soil.
Groundhogs are no doubt an important part of nature. There is also no denying that they seem like cute and cuddly creatures, but get one burrowing in your garden or yard and youll change your mind right away. Lucky, this is a problem that you can handle on your own with the information above.
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Eliminating Moles In Your Lawn With Vegetative Barriers
Another way of getting rid of moles in your yard naturally is to use vegetative barriers. There is a range of mole repellent plants that moles detest, and growing them in strategic locations deters them from your garden.
- Fritillarias
Using natural mole deterrents is one of the easiest ways to keep these pests out of your garden area.
Make a natural wall of colorful flowers and foliage by planting marigolds, fritillarias, and daffodils around garden beds and grow alliums such as scallions, leeks, chives, onions, and garlic around your vegetable garden.
Professionals Can Help Get Rid Of Gophers
Depending on where you live and how bad your gopher problem is, a professional may be a good option for helping to get gophers out of your yard. You can use our nationwide pest control finder to get in contact with a local professional for free!
There are a few different methods that professionals use to get rid of gophers. Some professionals may use trapping methods to catch and release gophers from your property to prevent further damage from their burrowing habits.
If your landscaping is being repeatedly damaged, you might want to talk to a professional about what methods of trapping they use on rodents like gophers.
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