Gophers - not for the faint of heart...

Gophers (@$%#!@#)!
The bane of the vegetable garden. Not to be confused with moles (see below) who eat earthworms, leave mounds of dirt in the lawn, but do not harm your plants, gophers kill vegetables and fruit trees, rose bushes and other landscaping by eating their roots. 
I have played tug of war in the garden with these voracious rodents and they are high on the list of foes to any dedicated vegetable gardener. Nothing is more aggravating than to go out and find a previously vigorous plant suddenly short and wilted, slumped into the hole where its roots used to be.

Gopher damage and prevention depends on the numbers you are dealing with. These little critters propagate like the prey animal that they are, are not deterred by noisemakers or most repellents, and send in new troops to replace the fallen. Thus our most effective method here is trapping and good cats. A friend also had success with a good dog (rat terrier) but the holes he left were larger than the gophers made. If you poison them and a cat or dog gets them afterwards, they can be affected by the poison as well, so we don't recommend that.

If you are not keen on actually killing them off, there are some moderately effective repellents, such as Castor bean/oil – but the truth is barricading them from the plants or reducing their numbers is the only real method if you have a lot of them. In a really wet winter some of them seem to drown (ditto yellowjackets). Simple cages around the roots of plants rarely work. Even raised beds are ineffective unless they are both tall enough gophers cannot climb over the top and have a gopher proof barrier underneath. We know folks who put a 2 inch deep layer of broken glass under a bed and the gophers came through, and they easily scaled the 10 inch sides of our strawberry bed.



We are about to add some new raised beds to our garden. More than 16 inches tall and lined with 1/2 inch hardware cloth they will be a safe haven for gopher delectables such as potatoes, onions, carrots and garlic, cole crops and parsley. Sometimes peppers. And peas. Sigh.
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Gopher story: I had heard several times that gophers would eat Juicyfruit gum and it would clog up their insides & kill them. Many years back I saw this mentioned yet another time in Herb Caen’s column in the SF Chronicle (long time back ) and that pushed me to try it. In certain times of the year they leave their tunnels open to the surface. During that time I placed an unwrapped stick of gum in the holes. Several hours later I would check and Lo! The gum was gone.

I repeated the procedure... A case of Juicyfruit later they were happily consuming all the gum I could give them with no end in sight. I had no idea if constipated gophers were piling up underground or if it just wasn’t working. So we decided to put the gum in the tunnel behind a standard Macabee Gopher Trap. A nasty piece of work that pierces the rodent to death, these traps can be very effective if you find their main tunnel, up to 15 inches deep, and place 2 of these traps, one going each direction. Cover the hole with sod or a board and some dirt to keep the light out, etc.. But for the gum experiment that wasn’t an option, there is really no way to “bait” these traps. So we set them in the feeder surface tunnels near where we placed the gum, but the gophers generally just set off the traps by pushing dirt into them, took the gum and left.

So I had the idea of getting a couple of rat traps (gophers are considerably larger than mice), as they can be effectively baited. Bait in place, I set the traps on the surface of the ground outside the open tunnel. This is 100% opposite everything you have ever heard about dealing with gophers, but I couldn’t figure a way to get the broad traps into the tunnel without the whole thing collapsing as I dug it out to make it fit.

It worked! Against all odds the gophers were coming out of the ground in broad daylight and throwing themselves into the rat traps to get at the gum!!! In 2 weeks we caught 13 gophers. One day we caught 2 gophers in the same trap in about 1 hour. I saw there was a gopher in one of the rat traps and asked my husband to remove it. He went to the store and when he came back I had noticed there was still a gopher in the trap and asked him why he had left it there, but he had already removed one and this was a new gopher!


We must have made a dent in the population, as we saw only a few new tunnels after that. The technique was also limited by the short time in spring during which the tunnels are open. Since then our cats have been able to keep them from getting quite as out of hand as they were that year.
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Resources:
We have friends who swear by "Black Hole" and "Black Box" gopher traps as well. Here is information on a variety of Gopher traps and how to choose. 
For beautiful, durable and easy to assemble raised bed kits,(illustrated above) see: naturalyards.com
For natural outdoor yard and garden pests: Bird&Home.com
Natural Home and garden pest solutions: www.NaturalPestProductsStore.com
Source for traps for Gophers, moles and voles is www.traplineproducts.com. They also have instructional videos.

Garden planning - to share...

We had four of our grandchildren here for a week in April. Once again it went from snow to summer weather in this wildly variable spring weather that has become the norm. But we had enough lovely days to begin the prep work on the garden.
In the photo you see Emily and Devan with the last of the carrots. We grow our winter carrots in the 1/2 barrels you see to the left, and it was time to take them out and replace them with lettuce and other spring greens.

Part of our garden plan is to have intentional excess to share with those who need it most. One local county food bank, Food for People, is promoting the national "Plant A Row for the Hungry" program. In the past we have taken garden excess down to local food distribution centers. Yes, everyone does appreciate good organic tomatoes, cucumbers, and even (!) zuchinni.

Another good example of one person's idea blossoming into something wonderful, the Plant a Row program can boast that: "Since 1995, over 14 million pounds of produce providing over 50 million meals have been donated by American gardeners. All this has been achieved without government subsidy or bureaucratic red tape — just people helping people." Not bad. Good, organic, local, REAL food getting to those who need it most. And a good example of how we can easily share the benefits of our personal success.

Our business, Simmons Natural Bodycare, is tiny. Barely a blip on anyone's business radar and never to be a candidate for the Fortune 500. But we can contribute to the greater good in a way defined and proportionate to our own good fortune. Thus we give a percentage of soap sales to Heifer International, our favorite all around holistic organization to help end hunger and care for the Earth, and we plant a tree through Trees for the Future for every 12 bars of soap we sell. Our success equals greater donations automatically. Yet, if our business has a tough time we still donate, just less, so it does not cut into our ability to help however we can afford to.

I am fortunate to live in this rural mountain community where neighbors look out for each other. I like to feel that, as a world community, we can be as caring.

Happy Spring!

Vernal Equinox, 20 March 2009 07:43 (EDT)

Today marks the "official" beginning of the spring season.

Now is a time of balance, of equal light and dark,
when all the elements of the earth and within us
ask to be brought to peaceful harmony.

Spring Equinox is one of our favorite times of the year --
days are longer than nights, it's getting warmer,
the trees are budding and the air has that expectant
stillness before the full bursting forth of summer.

Now is the time to plant the seeds that will grow and
bloom into our hopes and dreams. Let us be fearless --
and wise! The world will reap what we sow. And
remember the Native Americans, who consider the
effects of their actions for seven generations to come.

Despite the above quote and popular belief, the equinox is not necessarily the day of equal light and dark. That day generally happens slightly before the spring equinox (or after the fall equinox), the exact date depending on your location on Earth.
Technically the vernal equinox occurs when the center of the sun crosses the Equator, rising due east and setting due west. It really means the "center" of the sun. Sunrise is defined as the moment the very top edge of the sun appears to peek over the horizon. Sunset is when the very last bit of the sun disappears below the horizon. Those astronomers get pretty precise about these things.

But for millennia humans have given much more significance to this day. It is celebrated as Alban Eilir, Eostar, Eostre, Feast of Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Festival of Trees, Lady Day, NawRuz, No Ruz, Ostara, Ostra, or the Rites of Spring among others.
While Winter solstice truly marks the beginning of the return of longer days, Spring Equinox embodies the return of light and warmth and renewed life, giving rise to traditions of life, resurrection, fertility, and feasting in many cultures.

We celebrate this time of renewal here with work on our garden-to-be. With snow forecast for the weekend we are not doing much outside, but there are seeds to start and young seedlings to tend. We do cultivate in a greenhouse to extend our season here and this weekend will be sifting dirt and compost and planting greens and cool hardy crops in large tubs.

For anyone, the easiest, most cost effective vegetables to grow to extend your food budget are greens. From lettuce to Swiss Chard, all grow happily in containers. They are very quick to mature and you can have fresh, organic vegetables and salad year-round with little effort. We grow ours in reused large storage tubs we scrounged. Drilled a few holes in the bottom and Voila! Free 18 gallon planters. I generally grow lettuce in succession for a constant supply. I start new seed within a week of transplanting out my starts. $3.00 worth of lettuce seed will keep you in salad most, if not all, year. Add to that radishes, other types of greens, beets, carrots and such and you can grow a large amount of vegetables in containers, easily, for a very small amount of money.

We mix our own potting soil with about 1/3 of our clay-ey soil, 1/3 compost and 1/3 mixed chicken or steer manure and bought potting soil. Often the latter is actually really old potting soil I have reclaimed from other planters. We never throw any out as it is a nice amendment to loosen up our clay soil here.
The nice thing about all these vegetables is that they are also beautiful. Even if you only have a couple of planters of lettuce, with maybe a dwarf marigold in them, they can double as landscaping. So start your own salad bar as a way to celebrate the spring season, and remember to garden organically. It's easy.

Spring in the Garden... Baking in the Sun

Wahoo! A few consecutive days of warm, sunny weather! After weeks of on and off snow and a definite chill in the air, despite signs of spring like blooming daffodils and fruit trees, this warm interlude is very welcome.
We have been out in the garden preparing for the growing season. Working on the strawberry bed, mulching the rhubarb, weeding the asparagus, planting lettuce and peas, tending the garlic, and generally mowing down the cover crop and preparing to till and plant when our clay soil dries up some.
The end of winter/early spring is one of the least productive times in the garden, but we still have carrots, chard, beets, and even found a cabbage sprout that did not go to seed, but made a small cabbage instead. Better yet, there is finally new growth on the rhubarb and the asparagus is coming on.

Poor asparagus, the first spears that poked up were turned to mush by freezing cold. Now that it is not going below the mid - 30's we have been able to harvest the first of it. Even better, the rhubarb seems to have come up in force almost overnight!

We love rhubarb. Tart rhubarb pie with cold vanilla ice cream is to die for. We even like it made into a sauce to pour over custard or ice cream. This first rhubarb inspired me to indulge in one of our other favorite sunny day pastimes - cooking in our solar oven.

Solar ovens are wonderful. The first one here was modified cardboard boxes with foil lined reflectors and insulation between the boxes. It worked excellently, but despite our best care the cardboard started to warp and disintegrate in a couple of years. So we finally purchased a commercial one (then another!) and have been cooking in them almost every sunny day ever since, even in mid winter.
Think of them as a solar powered crock pot that also can bake. It is absolutely the best way to cook brown rice. Beans, stews, curries, lasagna, casseroles, pot roasts... all of these cook to perfection. Breads, cakes, brownies, and cobblers do just as well. We even use it to bake granola - which is the only thing we have ever burnt in it (oops...).

On the day we picked the rhubarb we just happened to have some organic strawberries I got in town, so it was obvious we had to make a strawberry - rhubarb treat.
I had already made some Spanish rice in the Sun Oven in the morning, so it was set up, pre-heated, and ready. I put together a quick and easy crisp and we had it by late afternoon, it cooked while we worked in the garden. All we had to do was check it and turn the oven now and then.
Now, you can easily cook in a solar oven without turning it. Just aim it somewhat west of the direct sun so the sun will hit it for the longest period of time. We built a giant turntable for ours using the base for a "Lazy Susan" and a scrap piece of countertop. This way we can turn it to follow the sun all day using a wedge to hold it in place so it doesn't turn freely in the wind.

You can build a solar oven easily yourself. There are many plans available on the internet, from simple Pizza Box "warming" ovens to a good basic cardboard box model: Solar oven plans . Lots of good information and more plans are in the book, "Heaven's Flame" .

For a wonderful, durable, reasonably priced solar oven, we use and recommend the Global SunOven.
Links to more information and cookbooks can be found at: Morning Hill
By the way, you will want some glass casserole dishes with lids. Colored glass is best, but they can be hard to find and/or expensive. K mart had the least expensive new ones I could find, and they crop up all the time in second hand stores.
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Now, about the Strawberry-Rhubarb Crisp... Here is the recipe:

Solar Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp
Use all organic ingredients, if possible.
3 to 4 cups fresh rhubarb stalks, cut in 1 inch chunks
1 pint of Strawberries, sliced
1/2 cup sugar or honey
1 Tbsp minute Tapioca
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1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup flour (whole wheat or white)
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped nuts (walnuts, pecans, or almonds)(optional)
a pinch of salt
5 Tbsp. butter, melted (you could use oil, but it is not near as tasty)
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Preheat your Solar Oven.
Mix the fruit, sweetener and tapioca in a 2 1/2qt casserole or 9"x 9"x 2" baking dish, set aside.
In a medium size bowl, mix together the remaining dry ingredients. Add the melted butter and stir until just mixed. Now sprinkle the oat mixture over the fruit and pat lightly.
Bake in the solar oven until top is crisp and browned and the fruit is bubbling up around the edges, 40 minutes to 1 hour (or more) as needed.
Best served still warm with ice cream.

I would love for others to share their favorite spring and/or solar oven recipes.