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Gophers, Moles, And Your Outdoor Cannabis Garden
Outdoor weed gardens are a blast, but they carry with them the chaos of the outside world, including the risk of pests. Moles and gophers may infiltrate your garden, and while one is benign, the other may ruin your crop. Read on to find out which is which, and how to get rid of the one that will eat your cannabis crop right under your nose.
Outdoor cannabis crops produce beautiful bud, but they come with a major drawback: the possibility of pests. In particular, your outdoor crops may be vulnerable to some mammalian marijuana meddlers: moles and gophers!
To deal with these gluttonous garden dwellers, you need to know what you’re up against. We’ll start by discussing the difference between these two animals.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MOLES AND GOPHERS
Gophers look like toothy rats and are 12–46cm long. Moles are odder-looking, with shovel-like paws, tiny pig-snouts, and eyes screwed shut; they’re 12–18cm long. Most importantly for weed-growing purposes, they have different diets: moles burrow through earth hunting for insects, while gophers eat plants.
Moles don’t pose much risk to your crops; they may even be of benefit by helping to keep the soil loose and nutrient-rich. There’s a small risk that they may damage your plants’ roots if they burrow right through them. But for the most part, they are a benign guest.
If you’ve got gophers, you’ve got problems. Gophers will chow down on your plants’ roots and may even suck them down whole. They seem to especially enjoy cannabis plants—perhaps they’re the stoners of the rodent world! Gophers are your main concern, and if they’ve made a home in your garden, you need to do something about it.
HOW TO TELL IF YOU’VE GOT GOPHERS OR MOLES
If you can spot one of the critters, you’ll be able to tell them apart fairly easily, as per the descriptions above. Even if you don’t see one, however, you’ll be able to tell the difference by observing your garden.
Molehills and gopher mounds have a distinct look. A molehill will have a “cone-like” shape, like a volcano with a hole right at the apex. A gopher mound, on the other hand, will be more rounded, perhaps even flat at the top, with the hole coming out the side at an angle.
Beyond this, the kind of damage your plants undergo will be a dead giveaway. Moles should leave your plants unharmed, with maybe some minor bending of the roots. Gophers will leave your plants’ roots chewed to the quick. If you have plants that disappear altogether, a gopher is a likely culprit.
HOW TO GET RID OF FURRY FRIENDS AND FOES
There are a few strategies you can use to get rid of unwanted mammalian pests. We’ll assume you’re dealing with gophers since, as we discussed, moles are fairly benign. Some of these approaches will merely relocate your gophers, while others will kill them. We encourage you to begin by experimenting with non-lethal options and to save the death-dealing for if you have a serious infestation that is responsive to nothing else.
1. CASTOR OIL AND GARLIC WATER
Pour castor oil and garlic water into the opening of the gopher mound, and spray a layer over your garden soil. This should repel the gophers and force them to migrate to a different area.
2. LINE YOUR GARDEN WITH HARDWARE CLOTH
Hardware cloth is wire mesh where the holes are much smaller than chicken wire. If you line the bottom and sides of your raised garden with it, the gophers will have a very hard time getting in. They may jump over the sides, but this is very rare. Even if they do so, they won’t be hard to catch.
This method may not be possible if you have a garden already in progress, or if you’re not using raised beds.
3. REPEL GOPHERS WITH ALLIUMS
From a gopher perspective, garlic and onions aren’t nearly as delicious-smelling as weed. Plant chives, garlic, and other low-maintenance alliums around your cannabis plants to repel your rodent pests.
4. CATCH AND RELEASE TRAPS
These are a lot of work for the grower, but no one ever said being ethical was easy.
You’ll want to set these traps on a day when you’re home to monitor them. Set them at each gopher opening, and check periodically to see if you’ve caught your gopher guest. Once you have, drive the trap with the struggling gopher to a nice spot in the wild, and let it free. You’ll want to use rodent handling gloves for the whole operation as the gopher might be less than gracious in accepting your kind compassion, and you don’t want to get bit.
5. USE A CAT
Letting your cat roam free in your weed garden sends a clear message to your gophers that it’s time to find new stomping grounds. Whether this option is lethal or not rests entirely in your cat’s capable (or not-so-capable) paws—it may scare your gophers away, or you may end up with a bloodied-up weed thief on your doorstep.
6. PLANT SOME DEATHLY FLOWERS
We’re onto the deadly options. Plant some toxic oleanders to poison your gopher foes—just take care not to eat any yourself, and to keep pets and small children away from your garden.
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