I have to have raised beds with hardware cloth (heavy duty wire) underneath. Even then they will get into the beds from time to time climbing over or the wire breaks down eventually and they'll find their way in.
About 3 years ago (when I had some cash) I went to a big box store to ask and the lady was adamant that these chattering things you stick in the ground worked great! I was skeptical, but went ahead and bought one.
The only time I've seen any action in my vege garden since then was when the batteries went dead and we didn't notice for a week or so! Our vege garden area is about 20x50 ft. I have seen brief action at each far end of this yard, but only for maybe a day, then gone! We have PLENTY of them in other parts of the yard!
DH found a few at a thrift store for a couple of bucks each, so I'm setting them up in other parts of the yard to see if they will clear them out there!
Others may pooh pooh me, but that's my experience! Nancy

I recently trapped a pocket gopher in my back yard that was burrowing under my veggie garden! There was no way I was going to let that little rodent destroy all of my hard work. I bought a Victor Easy Gopher Trap, did some research on the best way to place it and voila I had that gopher in less than 24 hours. You can watch videos on youtube on how to set the trap and how to locate main burrows etc.
You can buy the traps at home depot. I got a set of traps for around 7 dollars.
Happy gopher hunting :)

Thanks both for your suggestions!

Nancyjane, do you happen to remember the name of that chattering thing? If that will deter gophers I definitely will give it a try.

AiliDeSpain, I've heard some of those little traps worked but I have a hard time finding them locally (we're in Canada). I wonder if they are available in the US only. I will keep looking and if I can't find them I may have to have someone ship from the US.

Thanks again!

I know Amazon sells them.

I had to deal with gophers when I gardened in California. Fortunately, I don't have to deal with them here... but their cousins, the groundhogs, are occasional problems. Ground hogs, while larger & more destructive, are easier to trap.

I had good luck just sticking a hose into the most recent gopher burrow, and flooding them out. Flooding will reveal just how extensive their burrows are. It took time, and you had to keep an eye on the whole area, since they might emerge anywhere along their burrow. They don't move too fast once above ground (especially when half drowned) so I just caught them in a fishing net, and dispatched them quickly with a shovel.

I tried the traps, and the gopher bombs, to no avail. In one location, I had a really hard time eliminating the gophers, because my neighbor had a severe infestation & refused to deal with it. The only method that worked was digging into their runs (you feel for them with an iron rod), placing poison bait in their burrows, and covering the hole with plywood to block the light. I kept replacing the bait until it remained untouched, or until the gophers sealed the burrow... in which case, I repeated the process on a different run. Eventually there was no new activity. After that, I only had to deal with them when they moved in from the surrounding area, and it was usually a lone invader that I was able to flood out.

Sorry if these measures sound harsh, but when gophers are destroying my vegetable garden, it's war.

I agree with AiliDeSpain. However the description wasn't detailed. Victor traps are Mcabee traps. Before I continue, I would expect the clapper (chattering) devices to work in a small contained garden too. The old ones were little windmill thingies on a pole stuck into the ground.

I copied my post from an older gopher post. A pair of traditional Macabee traps work well most of the time. You attach a wire already attached to a stick (preventing a gopher from pulling the trap back down the hole and reminding you of the trap location) to the coil end. Press the spring loaded sharp pronged jaws open, set the trap and insert one going each way in the main tunnel which is usually less than a foot away sideways and down from the hole with the pile of dirt. You cover the exposed area with boards and dirt and wait a few hours for a gopher to return to repair the damage. When its nose hits the trigger it gets gruesomely jabbed and squashed. You then have to open the trap up with all the gore so you need to be prepared for that. Of course if half your produce just got chomped off at the roots then some exploding guts might be just the ticket.

To be clear: look for a fairly new pile of dirt. The main tunnel is a short distance down and perpindicular to the soil disposal hole. You MUST put a trap in the main hole in both directions at once. A reasonable approach would be to have at least two sets of traps set in different areas to speed things up. You Will kill gophers. It will be messy and unpleasant. And after looking for new dirt piles and repeating a few times, your gopher problem will be gone; for awhile.

I'm sorry, but I don't remember the name of the chattering device. If I go by HD (I'm remodeling, so I'm sure I will) soon, I'll try to remember to write down the name.
If you end up using traps, if you have a wildlife rescue near you, they appreciate the bodies to feed their rescues. Makes you feel a little better about killing the lil fellers! LOL Nancy

Thanks again, everyone!

I personally would prefer the sound device to deter the rodents. I know they are annoying and destroying our garden but we just have a hard time killing things. We once trapped a squirrel that was doing a lot of damage to our yard. Hubby caught it with the Richardson's trap and had to kill it but I couldn't watch. He tried drowning and other methods but the darn thing just refused to die, until hubby applied some blunt force.

Of course, if we can't find the chattering thing we will have no choice but to trap and kill it. The closest rescue place is 45 minutes away from where we live so we probably will give it to the crows and magpies for we have plenty of them.

Zeedman, how long do you have to flood the ground to get them out? I imagine with all the dirt the water will get absorbed rather quickly. Do you put hoses in all the holes or just one of them? We can see two holes so far but I am sure there are more in some obscure places.

The squash plants so far look good. But I think the gopher is eating the root of our apple tree because it is showing signs of distress.

I have checked Rona and Home Depot but neither one of the carried any gopher traps. All they had were mouse traps that are pretty much useless in our case.

Amazon.com sells the traps but they will not ship to Canada. Amazon.ca doesn't carry anything in that sort. What a shame!

I will continute to look and maybe I will find it somewhere. We are not near the US border so it will be a very expensive trip to go there just for the traps. I hope a friend will go south soon and I may be able to ask them for a favor and hope they will make it through customs. :-(

Nancyjane, I would really appreciate if you can find out the name of the chattering device.

Try rat traps.

Although I think cats work best.

"Zeedman, how long do you have to flood the ground to get them out? I imagine with all the dirt the water will get absorbed rather quickly. Do you put hoses in all the holes or just one of them?"

Look for the most recent dirt pile, turn the hose on, and push it in until it breaks through into the tunnel. If the land is sloping, choose the highest hole possible. You might have to probe around a little. All I ever used was a single hose, because all of the tunnels are interconnected. Once you begin, you need to continue until you drive the gopher out, or it will just wall off the tunnel that was flooded.

If the tunnels are extensive, or if the soil is very dry, it might take an hour or more to completely flood the tunnel. I always did this in heavy soil; in sandy soil it may not be practical. You need the highest water volume possible, so if you have low pressure or a low volume faucet, you may not be able to completely flood the tunnel. If the flooding is not complete & there are air pockets remaining in the tunnel, the gopher(s) will not surface.

When the air runs out, the gopher might poke its nose through somewhere to get air. I carried a shovel, so I could dig it up if I saw movement... or give it blunt force anesthesia if it stuck its head out.

Even if the flooding method fails, you will be able to see the locations of the tunnels, by the wetness of the ground above them. This will allow you to use traps or baits more effectively.

Ah thanks for the explanation. I know nothing about what type of soil we have so I am going share this with hubby to see how practical this flooding method will be in our situation. I notice the holes are inside our raised bed as well as an area just outside our fence and behind the shed. The area is quite large and I hope we will find all the holes and flood the darn thing out. We probably need a few people to keep watch because there are so many holes in such a large area?

Here in SE Wyoming, pocket gophers are part of the landscape - they are all over.

Here is what has worked for me, in order of effectiveness:

1) A Fence around the garden with chicken wire buried 24 inches into the ground attached.

2) My cats

3) Raised beds

4) Used kitty litter spread near all gopher holes I can find and under all my fence gates.

5) A willingness to allow some of my garden to be taken by the gophers.

I REALLY do not like to poison them, cuz then my cats and dogs are bringing home and or eating the gophers they find that are full of poison.

You can trap them, but that is pain and messy and inconvenient and seems like a losing battle: for every one you see there are a hundred more!

Just my two cents!

In my experience flooding doesn't work. The burrow system is usually too long and complex for flooding to work.
Trapping really isn't difficult or messy if you do your research and know what your doing. Like I said I caught my gopher in less than 24 hours of setting the trap. In addition I have not seen any signs of additional gophers since trapping the one in my yard, not to say that I won't see another, just that I have no dirt piles since catching the one. It's not all blood and guts when you trap them. The trap basically crushes the gopher around the middle you simply carry the trap to the garbage and open it and toss it in. If your squeemish about doing this, have your husband release it. That's what I did ;)

Think very VERY carefully about using poisons if you or your neighbors have pets. Rodents will often die far from where the poison was spread, and can be chewed by your dog or cat. And yes, it won't just make Fluffy sick, it can kill her.

Before we could get our hands on the gopher in our backyard we discovered 5 more holes in our front lawn, by the roses! :-( We're a street across from the ravine so I suppose this is something unavoidable. Seems like we will have to buy gopher traps by the case! LOL

In the other thread I posted the same result. We got voles, not gophers! Got the traps set up last night and this morning we got two of them, good size too!

{{gwi:93577}}

Those are mice, not voles.

Definitely not mice, RATS!! yuck

Voles have shorter tails and smaller ears, that's why I think they look like rats and not voles.

I just did a search on differences between a mouse and a rat and you're right. These definitely are rats! I always thought rats were bigger (not that I wanted those in my yard any bigger) and these are just a bit shorter than 3" (tail not included). Whatever they are they look pretty disgusting! We will continue to trap them and hope to get rid of them before they multiply!

By the way, how do we seal the holes once we decide they're all gone? I just don't want anything else move into this convenient resident.

I had terrible trouble in California with gophers and tried a remedy from a family member. It really worked for about 3 years and then stopped working. Buy a large box of Juicy Fruit gum and, with latex gloves on, roll each stick of gum lengthwise so it looks like a bit of root. You then put one or two of these down every gopher hole you find. I imagine the reason this works is that the gophers can not digest the gum and it "gums" up the works. Sounds cruel but war is war!

There is so much misinformation out there. Read the information from UC Davis. They have studied this.

Bottom line is, if you want to solve the problem, set traps.

Gophers ate my pumpkin plants last year (roots, stems, fruit). There is no vegetable you are likely to grow that they don't eat. So your squash is definitely not safe.

Water occasionally flushes the gophers out, but if you don't kill them when they come running out, then the water does no good at all. Their boroughs are actually constructed in such a way that they are somewhat resistant to flooding.(which should not be a surprise).

Juicy fruit does not work. This is a fact. A researcher at UC Davis fed a captive gopher juicy fruit for years. They do like juicy fruit, but it doesn't harm them.

I don't believe noisemakers work because I have seen solar powered noisemakers in areas that were massively infested, and nobody I personally know who has tried them has had success, although sometimes you can convince yourself that it works. Some people seem to be very confident that they work. I would try to get the exact same make and model as those people use, because they must be different from what I have seen.

Traps work. You have to use them properly in currently active areas.

Poison works, but again, you have to put it in the active areas. And I personally have never used it because my dog occasionally eats gophers, and I generally try not to add poison to my garden.

You can exclude them by planting in boxes (raised beds) with hardware cloth (half inch mesh). Make sure it is galvanized. It will last for several years. I have pulled it up after 3 years and no rust started yet. The top of the box must be up over the soil surface by, say, 2 inches (or more). Gophers will not climb over a two inch vertical obstacle, but make sure they don't create a mound right next to the bed, and then use the mound as a ramp. Vegetation can also make a ramp. Police the edges to make sure there are no ramps.

What I would do is get the traps. Go around your whole property (if it is not too big) or at least the garden and surrounding area and fill in any open holes, and smooth out any mounds. Now keep your eyes open for fresh activity. If you find an active feeding area (and you will... .look for wilted plants, or newly missing plants), dig into the active feeding area and find the tunnel. Dig out the plant, in a straight down direction and look for the tunnel in the sides of your hole. You may need to probe with fingers. When you find the tunnel, clear it out and put a single trap in the tunnel. Stake it so the gopher doesn't pull the trap into the tunnel. Don't use bait. Don't use rat traps. Use cinch type gopher traps (like Macabee or similar).

It is very likely that you will catch the gopher within a few hours. I don't think it will be gory. I have never seen any blood or gore. If you are sqeamish, wait like 12 hours before checking the trap. That way the gopher will probably be dead. If you catch nothing after 48 hours, you probably aren't going to catch anything.

Remain vigilant. Look for new activity, and any time you see it, jump on it and set a trap. If you see mounds, but no obvious feeding activity, you can probe (or dig) around the mound to find the main tunnel. Put two traps facing away from each other in the middle of the main tunnel. Stake them and cover the hole so nobody falls in or sets off the traps.

Gophers are actually solitary and they do not hibernate. So if you catch one (unless it is a baby or a mama) you are probably done with that particular tunnel. Pack it up and look for signs of activity elsewhere.

By the way, the only reason the gophers ate my pumpkins is that my son really wanted to sprout the pumpkin seeds, so we started the seeds, and then transplanted directly in the ground, despite the fact that the raised bed with HW cloth was not ready.

I caught quite a few gophers, but my whole property is massively infested with them, and new ones just move right in.

Hope this helps.
--McKenzie

I guess magicmoira and I got sucked in to an old thread. It happens.

--McKenzie

A couple of things....Chicken wire will do NOTHING! It's too flimsy and will rot within a year or 2 in the ground. It is also too big of a gap! Those gophers are like mice! They can slip through a VERY small space!
Flooding is pretty useless. Those little suckers have a way to seal their tunnels just for that reason! They seal tem in several places throughout their tunnel maze.
As I said earlier and on another board, the noisemakers have kept my raised bed garden area gopher free (except when the batteries went dead) for close to 4 years now! The rest of my 1 1/4 acre property is just riddled with gophers! I'm just reporting what is working for me! Nancy
Good luck and happy gardening!