So I’ve been thinking about the gophers again. It seems I can’t do anything I want with the garden because of them. But then I got to thinking….we grow cover crops, and have animals like goats come and graze them down, and add their manure to the topsoil. Don’t gophers offer the same thing, just a few inches underground? They eat the cover crop – in my case fava bean and vetch, and turn that into manure deposited right at root level. What if I let the gophers continue doing their thing, and just work with them by sheet mulching and growing more cover crops, while they work under the surface in the root zone not only to fertilize the soil, but to aerate it as well?
But what when it comes time to plant what I really want there? Should I focus on the things they don’t seem to like, such as raspberry bushes and lavender? I don’t want to be too restricted – we need the biodiversity to attract the beneficial insects and birds. But then the gophers just eat the other stuff, unless planted in baskets. Any thoughts?