3 Humane Ways to Keep Furry Underground Garden Pests Out for Good
While gophers look kind of cute in photos, they sure as heck don’t make you coo with joy when they’re chomping through your garden bed. Luckily, there are a few ways you can keep common garden pests out of your garden without starting a bloody war.
1. Invest in hardware cloth
If you’ve yet to plant your fall crop, use some hardware cloth to line your garden beds. This is a great method to use for raised garden beds with wooden sides. All you have to do is line the bottom of the bed with a layer of hardware cloth and staple the cloth to the sides of the bed. For ground beds, place hardware cloth 12 inches below the surface of your garden. “The hardware cloth should extend at least 12 inches aboveground as well to keep the animals from going up and over. Always overlap multiple pieces by 6 inches and bind them together with bailing wire to create a solid barrier,” Modern Farmer reports.
If you’ve already planted your garden but don’t have any problems yet (you know you eventually will), invest in a vertical hardware cloth fence. Instructions on how to install the fence can be found here.
2. Use repellents
Not everyone has the time to install hardware, we know, but there are some repellents that can help keep many garden pests away.
Freshly cut human hair can be placed in active pest tunnels — the pests don’t like the smell. Other things, such as dryer sheets, coffee grounds, and garlic, can also repel these pests, too. Other repellents to consider include audible repellents, granular repellents, and plant repellent.
3. Embrace ’em
Underground animals can help improve soil drainage. They also snack on pesty bugs and grubs, and in turn, enrich your soil with manure. If you find you have too many furry garden pests, you can encourage their predators to take up residence in your yard by adding brush piles and large rocks for snakes to live by, or by installing owl boxes.
Related on Organic Authority
How to Prevent Common Garden Pests
How to Manage Garden Pests: The Deer Dilemma
5 Ways To Eliminate Garden Pests Without Nasty Chemical Pesticides
Image of gopher from Shutterstock
