Groundhogs or groundhogs?
Whether you call them groundhogs or marmots, these large rodents are the gardener’s nemesis. They love succulent vegetables from your garden and are constantly gnawing on them – cucumbers, young tree trunks, you name it. These clever animals also leave ankle-length potholes in the lawn.
Give peace a chance by growing a lettuce plant near the entrance of her tunnel. With any luck, you’ll keep them full by eating “their” salad instead of yours. If that doesn’t work, the fumes from concentrated fox urine, which you can buy at hunting stores, will deter marmots from entering your yard. Be careful where you sprinkle this substance, but the smell is amazing.
Set a trap in a shallow ditch near the tunnel entrance and cover the trigger mechanism with some dirt. Sprinkle nuts, sunflower seed or grain on top and add more bait to the trap. Always wear rubber gloves when handling traps and baits so you don’t leave an odor on them.
If you want a truly natural solution to your gopher problem and live in a relatively rural area, make your yard and garden as safe and hospitable as possible to owls, hawks, gopher snakes, and king snakes, which are natural enemies of gophers. Dogs, cats, and skunks will also stalk gophers, but dogs and skunks are diggers too — they can do more damage to your yard than gophers.
Many garden centers and specialty catalogs sell gopher and mole repellent devices. Wind-powered models that rattle when pushed by a breeze can serve as lawn ornaments.
Soak rags in ammonia, drop them into a gopher hole, and seal any tunnel openings with dirt. The gophers will leave in a hurry. This tactic is most effective in the spring, before the ground squirrels have made themselves at home.
