It has begun.
Logan and Kaia planted sunflowers about two weeks ago for the Great Sunflower Project. Two little shoots popped out of the ground last week.
They’re gone now, a telltale mound running directly beneath where they used to be.
This, of course, means war. So I went to Farm Supply to pick up something that will either a) repel the gophers or b) kill them. I’m going with option a) first, but if that doesn’t work I will move to option b) with extreme prejudice. The first attempt is blood meal.
Updates to follow. Keep your fingers crossed that the gophers get the hint and I don’t have to resort to more drastic measures.
Think Caddyshack.
Mom
Izik
Denette
samsonblackwell
Hole in the Fence 
Sis, i am so confused by all this – i am really not that much software savy. i’ll go to Stater’s and see if they will give me some fish heads – what do you think. I noticed when I clicked on your reply button – snap fish comes on to take a picture perhaps. So i think I’ll do this at home and make sure i am not in by “birthday suit” love you sis, me (hard working heheheh)
Hi Shel, It was great to see you. Oh you do my heart good. Thanks for checking us out here. I know about gophers in Arrowhead. I planted 150 daffodil bulbs on the side of the hill on Cedar one spring. The gophers had a field day and ate all but two. My dream of a blazing hillside of yellow daffodils was a dud. Article in the paper that spring (everyone was having trouble with gophers) said gophers are herbivores and hate the smell of anything carnivorous. They suggested planting fish heads in the gopher holes to ward them off. I went to Big Jensens and got all the fresh cut up fish from Bob the butcher and planted them in the holes. I did that and then planted periwinkles on the hillside instead of expensive bulbs from Holland. No problems with gophers and the periwinkles went crazy. I just think gophers didn’t like periwinkles as much and headed for the neighbors flower bed. Oh oops. I had really healthy plants though. Must have been all that fish. Working on a prepackaged, precut raised bed for you too. Keep in touch love.
So Samson so nice to see you, sis and mom 🙂 I’m anxious to hear the on going report of the gopher dilemna since being in Arrowhead Highlands I don’t plant until after Mother’s day. xoxoxoxo squeeze MOM 🙂
So great to see you, too, Michele! You looked radiant! My mom was thrilled, as you could tell, to see you.
I hope you don’t have any problems with gophers (fingers crossed); they’re nasty little buggers. But I do hope some of our posts are informative/entertaining and that you’ll come back often.
See you soon. Much sooner than that last stretch. 😉
Good Luck! Let me know what works… The enemies out here are moles and deer. Ugh. I’m certainly not going to kill a deer to save some flowers, but the moles have made my lawn the ugliest in the neighborhood…
I’ll keep you updated. So far, I’ve seen that a lot of the potential solutions for gophers also work on moles. Hopefully.
And the lady at Farm Supply told me that blood meal works good at keeping dear away. Blood meal is, well, dried blood. So i guess the deer aren’t too fond of that. You just spread it on the ground around plants you want to protect. Oh, and blood meal is also a great fertilizer.