My Grandmother used to plant all her gopher-sensitive plants with broken glass mixed with the soil... seemed to work for her; and the roots don't seem to mind.

coyotes,badgers,wolves,weasels,opossums,owls,bobcats eat gopher's. Don't forget the gopher snake. It rattles its tail like a rattle snake and should deter 2 legged dear.

Do you have access to burmese pythons. They make excellent killing machine. Just make sure you ware you constrictor prof diaphragm, chest, and neck armour when your out in the orchard.

Be safe
Steve

Well, first off, start trapping the gophers. No matter what you do, if you don't get the gopher population under control, they're going to find a way to eat everything on your lot. There are some traps that work very well, things like the "Black Box", MacAbee traps, both set in the main runner tunnel, facing away from each other. Trap, trap, trap. Keep trapping. In the meanwhile, you can use hardware cloth, and make a big box, 3' x 3' for your hole, also on the bottom. That will keep them at bay for a while. It's a huge undertaking, but the most important thing you can do is trap the gophers. I have done this religiously on my 1 acre property, and I have been able to keep them to almost zero on my lot. Can't say the same for some of my neighbors. I wouldn't recommend broken glass, as you may end up digging that area up some time down the road (or the next owners might), and you could end up injuring yourself or the new, unwitting neighbors might injure themselves. And, not so sure this works so well, as gophers are very adept at just tunneling around things.

Patty S.

Johnmerr,The broken glass idea is interesting, but with my memory I'd forget I did that and probably accidentally dig it up sometime later.

Steve, I would love to get some gopher snakes and have looked into it. Seems no one sells them, and I've not been able to lure them to the yard. I did have way worse gopher problems after, a. one neighbor moved and took all the feral cats they kinda fed to the pound, and b. the other neighbor cut down a large, wide and overgrown hedgerow that apparently an owl was nesting in. grrrr!

Patty, you are right in that trapping is one of the best ways, but I don't think you got to the last sentence of my way too long post, lol!
We do trap, but it's not enough. I'm looking for longer protection than the gopher basket cages the nursery sells.
Really good instructions on how to do it though.

I like the idea of 3'x'3 boxes. It is a lot of work, but maybe less than the idea of lining the whole 4'x30' bed. What gauge hardware cloth did you use, I'm really wanting something that will last a few years at least.

Here's what I do on some of my expensive plants - I use very large "squat" type heavy plastic pots drilled with 1" holes all around in two rows as well as holes on the bottom of the pot. Then I pot up the plant right into this pot with potted soil. Lastly you dig a big enough hole in the ground to accompany this squat plastic pot with the plant inside. If you do it right, you would not even know that the plant is in a pot because it looks like it is planted right into the ground. So far my olive and other plants have survived the gophers going on more than three years. Understand that your plants will probably not get as big as if the roots were unhindered but I'd rather have a live plant than a dead plant with the roots chewed up by these nasty gophers.

Chandran, that's an interesting idea, but could it work with the garden soil? I don't want to pull them up in 4-5 years to re-pot with fresh potting soil, assuming the potting mix would break down after a while.

Barb,
I used Miracle Garden soil to pot and have not changed the soil all these three years. I have added worm castings and fertilizers to some but have not at all fertilize the olive tree. They all seem to be doing well. I guess if I wanted to change the soil, I could dig some out and put in new soil. Haven't done it yet. I say if it ain't broke, don't fix it! At least not yet! And gophers haven't attack them yet.

Mae