Are There Plants that Deter Gophers (We Ask the Science) + The Flow State of Chefs

[@laurie4914]

My 13 year old son also identified the virtues of working against a deadline and recently proclaimed "Procrastination causes things to get done faster." Love the show and super thanks for all that you do.

[@leekosub1196]

50% of why I watch this daily is rooted in your kitchen background. Kitchen people are a rare breed. 🥰

[@buffaloraven]

New farmer trying to use all you do and your principles to turn a lot full of invasives into something much more regenerative. Thank you for all you do.

[@MK-ti2oo]

NorCal here, we have heavy gopher, ground squirrel, mole and vole pressure. Gopher hawk trap works well. They'll eat garlic, onions and shallots like you planted them bulbs just for their enjoyment. Exclusion is the best, 1/4 hardware cloth is what we use (i started with chicken wire and quickly found that the smaller voles and moles got thru the holes and it rusted out faster. I did use a spray i made with castor oil, castile soap and ground up Carolina reaper to spray a patch of asparagus that i planted when we first moved here and weren't caged at all, once they found that patch they were quickly devastating it and that spray actually did keep them off long enough to fern out, go dormant and i could dig them up and move them inside a gopher fenced area.

[@KristenFtw33]

I also enjoy reading the citations and finding out how wrong they are! Some literally conflicting the article! 😂

[@songhavenfarm1747]

Great question about gophers. We have pocket gophers and also ground squirrels that then use those tunnels and do a ton of damage mostly to our fruit orchards. I've planted narcissus around the trees, but it doesn't deter them. A friend who has alfalfa fields turned us on to a new trap, the Gopher Hawk, which we are excited to try out as it is safe for cats/dogs. Here on the great sage plains a lot of older farming neighbors disc around their orchards at least once or twice a year. Not great for the soil, but does deter and breakdown gopher tunnels. I just can't stomach turning the ground brown and seeing it all blow away in a dust storm.

[@smstap10]

I can vouch for the gopher hawk. I placed it in the tunnels around my garden and I caught 2 in the first 6 hours it was out. The gopher problem is a new one for me and my cultivated area I'm pretty sure is only big enough to support 2 gophers so despite me having the trap out now for nearly a week after the last one was caught it hasn't been tripped. But the gopher hawk was easy to set up, safe around my dogs, and killed one gopher and only caught the other by the leg so we had to execute it humanely ourselves.

[@jamiechevalier244]

Here in Northern California gophers are an especially bad problem because after May, there is no rain, and most of the surrounding land has no green plants for gopher food. So they all funnel into the garden. Local experience is that underground cinch traps started right at the beginning of the season are crucial. Farm cats on 1/3 to 1/2 food rations are also helpful. Rat terriers work well for ground squirrels, which come out of their burrows in daylight, less well for gophers. Gopher snakes do go down the burrows to hunt, and we provide small brush piles for them to breed in. Wormwood ha been effective for me around permanent plantings like roses but isn't suitable for annual crops--for one thing, it inhibits germination. We have had no luck with spurge, noisemakers, or box traps. Sunchokes make a good trap crop or decoy crop, but I hate to do anything that gives them more fuel.

[@gardenboydon]

Thank you for addressing the business side of farming in terms of soil health. We need an economic system that takes soil replenishment into considering. You're right! There are no market incentives to do so. Soil is important

[@sandrinakeffufal6008]

Hey don't stress about missing a show, I appreciate whatever you can give. Although if you just sat down and talked about something for a while, I'm sure that would be an interesting and watchable show 😊

[@RoySmith-wg1kv]

Thank you for your hard work! Cooked for 13 years. You speak truth :-)

[@devinclement]

2nd year market gardener, farmer jesse and charles dowding, and experience taught me everything I know lol

[@rachelbraaten5285]

Oh dear, caster beans! Be careful, everyone! ... lol. "I said cook the rice and beans, not the ricin beans!" ...oof

[@time7813]

In my experience here in Central Canada, pocket-gophers can go from "huh...looks like a gopher found the beets.." to a MAJOR problem in a very short period of time. I, too, am generally "live and let live"--and the gophers get the whole hay field to do their thing... but after getting WIPED OUT one year, my current management strategy is a complete zero-tolerance policy for gopher activity in the annual garden. The INSTANT I see a run or hill in the veg-patch, I put out a trap, and just about always have a customer within 24 hours (often less). Most years, I dispatch one or two of the adventurous explorers, and the REST of them continue living their best lives out in the hay field. It's just part of what I monitor, now.

[@stevenabel1232]

Thank you for this video. I also started in a kitchen 50 years ago. I hope they are not yelling as much as they did then. And yes to focus flow state. I really enjoy your content, and just finished your book. Great read. Glad you are doing what you are doing. Take care.

[@henoch44]

My gophers loved my garlic....and onions...and shallots...some potatoes too.

[@bradliston8990]

You're forgiven, Jesse. Good luck with your producer position! Also, the green no-till days are the best! I was on a flight recently and as we were getting off the pilot told me "nice hat" with it on. If you know you know, he must have been a good dude. have a good weekend folks

[@TheFarmacySeedsNetwork]

I have NEVER found any plants that were effective for gopher deterrents. The only thing that ever worked for me was HIGH QUALITY fencing systems INCLUDING fence extended into the ground at least 1 foot with a chicken wire sized meshed grid. I have tried EVERYTHING I could come across and found nothing effective. Also, be sure that you don't fence in a gopher entrance in an area you plant o grow in. They are extremely effective excavators and will RETUNNEL their entrance even after burying with a back hoe. Large open ground buffers around your fenced area are suggested. Yes, you are right on food service.. Very well described! 🌱

[@richardburman6045]

I have a brother in law who has just retired from managing a raisin vineyard for a non -profit. He claims that dropping one or more gum balls into each gopher hole eliminates many of the gophers. Reportedly, they eat the gum ball which expands inside them, and blocks their digestive tract. Supposedly, they recognize they cannot live much longer, and they dig a blind hole to die in.

[@emilyandersen8963]

When my parents moved to their house (before I was born), there was a big problem with animals burrowing around the house. I can't remember if it was moles, gophers, or another animal a long those lines. They took pop bottles and buried them up to the neck. When the wind blew, it would make the bottle whistle and scared them away. I rarely found any evidence of tunnels around their house growing up.

[@whydoyouwantmynamegoogle396]

I got that hoodie in the khaki color! Bummer loss to Everton today. Thanks for your work sir!

[@carminaburana9765]

It might have been a coincidence, but we had less gophers after gopher purge had been in the garden for a few years. It took a few years, with the purge just popping up wherever it popped up, but it seemed to help. I wish I'd saved some seeds.

[@hoosierpioneer]

I'd describe FLOW as like riding on the wave of energy and quick thinking that is created. I was in emergency veterinary medicine. Like you, I don't miss the stressful work, but do miss the flow which gave me satisfaction and self esteem.

[@22kmclaren]

I definitely appreciate the critical thinking about sources, we need more of that nowadays. Your comment about lack of original study for the grain around hay reminded me about something I saw from Joel Bervell (med student and content creator). Apparently there is a bad study from like 80 years ago that continuously gets cited, and the many citations encourages more young researchers to cite it, continuing the cycle of bad information. Even though it has been thoroughly disproven, the original has more clicks so gets more attention/trust.

[@evanculbert1141]

Will you be attending the National farm machinery show in Feb? I've never been as I am from southern Ontario but we have to drive over to Missouri to pick up a tractor and thought it was worth a stop along the way!

[@timmmmmmmmmmy1]

Oklahoma, pocket gophers, magic ones that make groceries disappear. Now you see it , now you don't. I'll be the 3rd here to highly recommend the gopher hawk traps. Added bonus for ease of operation, purchase a 1.5 inch augers for trap installation. Watch a video or 2 on their use.

[@howmygardengrows3080]

Always plant 4. One for a gopher, 2 for a gopher, 3 for a gopher, 4 don't gopher! 😂 (That was a joke Pa Ingalls told in one of the Little House books)

[@billshepherd5090]

My major project this spring is to dig out my raised beds and put down hardware cloth, qtr inch squares. I didn’t get a single radish, beet or turnip last year. The potato patch was a problem too.

[@stephenbeck6410]

Oh I love to be under time crunch! I totally enjoy the hyper-focus, maximum productivity that comes over me.

[@flowersintrees1740]

Love the tip on gumballs for Vole/Gopher. The only thing I've read is using used coffee grounds. Just tried and have no results to post.

[@brokenmeats5928]

I love ALL No-Till Growers videos!

[@Vuvu1101]

here's my two cents worth of anecdotal evidence with regard to companion planting: Euphorbia Lathyris has worked for me, it made a mole move away some 50 yards farther away from my garden and into the apple orchard. That was 3 years ago, I have plants still in place on the perimeter every season, haven't had any more issues with moles

[@goodjunkworkshop8383]

I shovel/snow blow my older neighbors neighbors' drive way just to be nice. They never asked me to. They gave us a lawnmower when ours broke and are nice to our young daughter and always get her a birthday/Christmas present. Used to do the same for my other neighbor until they started almost demanding it and started causing problems and arguments.

[@robertcotrell9810]

Flow is fascinating! It does not inherently require a time crunch or even a specific pressure. Flow is the point at which your ability level and the challenge at hand are balanced. Flow was coined and explored by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. One day I'll fully spell his name correctly on command 😅 He has a number of VERY approachable books. I highly recommend them. If you look up and the time passed quickly, no matter what you were doing, it was likely flow state.

[@Junzar56]

We knew someone who had a dog run around their garden. The dogs kept gophers out of the garden.

[@beentheredonethat6584]

The bane of tunneling critters is calcium carbide - if you can get it.

[@draganarc0131]

Depending on the size of your garden, I’ve had really good success with hardware cloth buried a foot in the ground and 2 above which keeps gophers and bunnies out. It’s very cost prohibitive on a big garden/ market garden.

[@devinclement]

I'm buying a swift blocker for this season, so gonna be my first year doing soil blocks. I bought like a million closed bottom 1020's and then realized it might be better to use those mesh ones :/ oh well.

[@abydosianchulac2]

Some slower evening, or as the time is found, start drilling holes into the bottoms at a middling spacing till you get through around ⅔ of them. Then, go back and drill more holes between those holes as you have time, and repeat that until you've drilled reasonable drainage in that batch of the 1020's. The others you can use for bottom-watering, slipping the "mesh" trays into and out of them.

[@mhubertcfi]

I have voles not gophers and I’ve tried planting garlic and daffodils around crops I’m trying to protect. I didn’t do a control row so hard to prove a negative…Another thing I’ve tried is spraying bitter spray (like the kind to train dogs) on corms and tubers such as ranunculus and dahlias. Would be terrible on sweet potatoes! I use it on fake eggs when I have an ‘egg eater’ chicken so it does deter birds too if sprayed on foliage. I’ve thought about spraying the crops on the end of the row it might teach bunnies etc that there’s nothing to see here. Move along😂. Appreciate your daily discussions

[@baracu]

I have a huge vole problem, eating everything with a tap root …only thing that worked for me is cages from metal mesh nets …they eat my grafted roses but won’t touch own root roses …the same with trees, own root no problem but grafted is their delicacy. I guess they love my no dig and possibly have a very beneficial role for my garden so so I can’t recommend anything to get rid of them …they do attract predators though and when their population hits a max they usually get an epidemic and their numbers drop drastically …it’s usually a cycle

[@clawfootfarm4805]

Gophers. We have them all ( pocket gophers, prairie dogs, moles, voles,,) we are in NE wa state (think n. Idaho) we have a trap protocol where we always have traps set and out. The gophers will learn them and avoid them eventually though. We have cats who catch them. The only plants we have found to help deter them is comfrey. But you need a lot of it. The roots of comfrey will form a physical barrier underground that the gophers do not like to go through. So a hedge of comfrey will also be an underground hedge to keep them out. By the way, pocket gophers will eat garlic too. I know this from experience. Sigh. Good luck!

[@DJONPAW]

Gopher purge??

[@RyanPanaro]

Gopher Spurge* (Euphorbia lathyrus) is poisonous, including the roots. So, anecdotally, it supposedly deters gophers. I haven't tried it yet

[@patricksenn8533]

If you are the smartest person in the room, you are in the wrong room!

[@chadjohnson2338]

What about owl house for gopher management?

[@daveordie]

ive only had success deterring animals by burying chicken wire, and that seems to depends on the size of the animal... Rabbits do not like the smell of garlic but it will not repel them enough to not eat your adjacent peas. As far as smells and things go...i dunno. However, thorny plants like barberry or invasive multiflora roses CAN provide natural protection if you TRIM and DROP branches/align an albeit dangerous natural border or hedgerow. It works but you need nice gloves.

[@craigmatheson2736]

How about the nocturnal ones (voles) and ground squirrels? I'm still in the intro...

[@lawrenberghanson4401]

"Research has not substantiated these claims." - 😂A lot of times, experience trumps "research." Yellow mustard can be a good option for gophers and other inground pests because of the pungent aroma, but also, learn about the gopher in your area. Like any living being on this planet, gophers adapt, so if at some point food was scarce and they only had access to the things they didn't like to survive, they would learn to eat those things as long as it isn't poisonous. Interesting perspective on time constraints. Time constraints aren't an adrenaline sport that I don't enjoy. 🤣 It isn't a motivator for me; it makes my mind more muddled than sharpened and focused. In an emergency situation, it is different because survival is key. Survival for me is life or death 🤔 mmm ... maybe that's key.

[@cyberhog8546]

Rosemary and geraniums dont get eaten by gophers

[@fourdayhomestead2839]

👍 😊

[@johncruser9853]

Traps work. The gophers are digging through your beds to eat worms, not really plants. If the only irrigated areas in a garden are the planting beds, then that is where the gophers will be.

[@williambrown9341]

Gophers are not the same as moles, do they ?! In my case with moles, I throw the drip irrigation line before planting, but at 10inches from the plantation line. And use hand-watering (with that bucket-tool of which I don't know the english word) during the first week for the newly transplanted plants. So the digged corridor will start on the wet line, and as the drip line will be moved close to, but not, on the plantation line, it is quite manageable. Of course it works with distant / spacing crops (tomato, eggplant, melon...)

[@RyanPanaro]

They have definitely eaten the roots (and bark) and killed plenty of plants and fruit trees where I am.. I wish they would only eat worms

[@davidbryden7904]

Pocket gophers definitely eat roots and plant mat'l. I've seen them grab the whole plant by the root and drag it down their hole.

[@MK-ti2oo]

Gophers and voles are there for the plants and roots. Moles are there for the grubs.

[@devinclement]

Hi farmer jesse

[@danphillips4590]

Reciprocity is a choice, not interested whatsoever

[@devinclement]

My main pest is rabbits, I have hundreds of them for some reason. I love watching them, but they eat everything without protection :/

[@andreamortimer2610]

"If you can't beat them, eat them!" I was told to look at them as an extra crop! I made the huge mistake to save a baby-bunny from a snake with mom watching me. Now she keeps dropping her litters in my garden beds and I don't want to betray her trust that I won't hurt her babies 😣

[@lynnevans7248]

Totally forgiven…but you were missed .

[@geraldinemitchell93]

You are always forgiven!! Gophers are the worst!

[@susanspeed1638]

what about rat terrier dogs?

[@donisenberg3032]

I take offense to your generalization about businesses. It totally destroyed my overall impression of you. Unsubscribed.

[@gekkobear1650]

What are you referring to? The widgets thing?