Gophers, rats, rabbits and more in the vegetable garden

Gophers, rats, rabbits and more in the vegetable garden (Photo: J. Gates)

Many vegetables do great for the first few years until the wildlife discovers you’ve planted them a paradise. Those ridiculous old cartoons of people playing tug-of-war with a gopher on the other end of a vegetable plant lose their absurdity when you find yourself on the opposite end of your favorite plant as something greedy beneath the soil tries to wrest it from your grip. There are a hundred and one home remedies to use against gophers, moles or voles from sound vibrations to chewing gum, to used kitty litter and more. These may work for some people. But they may not for others.

Usually pests learn to avoid most home remedies after a while. You can use poisons but there are issues with polluting the environment or killing pets or other natural wildlife if the bait is found or a poisoned animal is eaten. And gophers, moles and voles are opportunists so they will move into any unused tunnel once unpleasant odors and poisons disperse. One of the safest ways to stop these critters is by using physical barriers. Half-inch hardware cloth lining the vegetable garden underneath and up the sides, is a safe and effective solution. This also keeps out most of the other destructive rodents like mice, rats and rabbits. The tiny little field mice seem to find their way through chicken wire but will balk at half-inch hardware cloth. If these tiny fellows do find a gap to wriggle through, at least their damage is minimal.

Building a raised vegetable garden bed is probably the best way to avoid most of the damage caused by gophers, rats, rabbits and more.  Build it with the same provisions for lining with small gauge wire as mentioned above.

For those of you who have better luck with exposed vegetables, sometimes cages wrapped with one-inch chicken wire are enough to protect crops sufficiently. When it comes to melons, you might try plastic net bags, like the ones turkeys come in during the holidays, or sometimes onions and potatoes are sold in bulk with these nets. For some reason even the rabbits seem to be put off their game by the bags, while air and sunshine are free to pass through freely. Bag up young melons and let them grow to fill up the netting.

These are just some tips that you can try to help deal with gophers, rats, rabbits and more in the vegetable garden. Hopefully, some of these will help you crop more edibles for yourself and encourage the wildlife to feed elsewhere.