Hungry Gophers! Dying Cucumbers! But, Good News...
We take a deep dive into Episode 136 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Podcast
If You Belong to a Gopher Preservation Society, You Can Stop Reading Now
I always thought the widespread four-legged pest, the pocket gopher, was so-named because it lived in pockets, or tunnels, beneath our gardens. Turns out, the pocket gopher has that name for a physical trait I never noticed before: sacks, or pockets, located on the outside of the critter’s cheeks, for holding food. That link from the UC Ag and Natural Resources Department also enumerates the many ways gophers endear themselves to gardeners:
“Pocket gophers often invade yards and gardens, feeding on many garden crops, ornamental plants, vines, shrubs, and trees. A single gopher moving down a garden row can inflict considerable damage in a very short time by pulling entire plants into their tunnel from below. In snow-covered regions, gophers can feed on bark (called girdling) several feet up a tree by burrowing through the snow, although most girdling damage to trunks and large roots occurs belowground. Gophers also gnaw and damage flexible plastic water lines and irrigation systems, particularly those types used for drip irrigation. Their tunnels can divert and carry off irrigation water, which leads to soil erosion. Mounds on lawns interfere with mowing equipment and ruin the aesthetics of well-kept turfgrass.”
In Episode 136 of the Garden Basics podcast, we have a conversation with Roger Baldwin about gopher control tactics. Roger is a specialist with UC Davis in Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology. Mostly, he deals with the larger pests that threaten California’s agriculture. If our conversation about gopher control sounds like it was geared towards farmers…well, it was. Originally presented on a farm show I did back in 2017, this chat also has a lot of good info that can be adapted for the backyard gardener to achieve a victory or two over this pest. And if you are an organic grower, Roger recently released a guide for organic control tactics of several burrowing rodent pests such as gophers, squirrels, and voles (including deep ripping of fields to destroy the burrows).
Strategies Roger discusses on the podcast include using predators, such as barn owls; flood irrigation to flush them out; and, he the weighs the pros and cons of many of the gopher traps that are available. And, as Roger mentioned repeatedly during our chat, it will take employing several of these tactics, seasonally, to keep gopher populations under control.
Why Are My Cucumbers Suddenly Dying?
That was a question posed by a Virginia gardener on Episode 136 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. One possible explanation, according to our resident retired college horticulture professor, Debbie Flower: cucumber beetles vectoring bacterial wilt disease. This publication from University of Minnesota Extension on the topic provides a lot of the same info mentioned on the podcast by Debbie, illustrated by this interesting graphic:
By the way, don’t mistake a cucumber beetle for a ladybug.
Note the long antennae on the cucumber beetle.
One of the easiest control tactics to thwart the cucumber beetle? Placing a row cover over the young cucumber plants during the six weeks in spring when cucumber beetles are active. UCANR has that tip and more cucumber beetle control strategies here.
Another strategy from University of Maryland Extension is to plant bacterial wilt-resistant or cucumber beetle-resistant varieties of cucumbers:
Grow 'County Fair', a cucumber cultivar with genetic resistance to bacterial wilt. Select varieties resistant to cucumber beetle feeding (they have lower levels of the attractant compound cucurbitacin)- 'Gemini', 'Little Leaf-19', 'Saladin'.
And, Some Good news About Verticillium Wilt in Mulch
In the last newsletter, we discussed the benefits of using chipped/shredded tree parts as mulch. But what if that tree had a disease, such as verticillium wilt? Will that be a problem? Debbie Flower insisted it wouldn’t, if used as a mulch. But, there was conflicting evidence presented by the University of Wisconsin-Madison in trials they had conducted with arborists’ tree chips. Their paper on the topic led to other Extension publications in other states, advising not to use tree trimmings from a verticillium-infected tree, although all of them stated that more research needs to be done on the topic. Debbie Flower dug deeper into the UW-Madison research. In some of their university tests, results that showed that verticillium wilt in those chips could be transferred to another living plant. But, Debbie discovered there was one big difference: those chips were not used as a mulch; they were used as a soil amendment. What’s the difference? We talked about that with Debbie on this special Garden Basics Newsletter chat:
This Week, In the Farmer Fred Marketplace
As I am fond of saying…As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases from possible links mentioned here.
Hey, it’s a free newsletter! If you shop online at Amazon, please consider using the links provided for great garden merchandise (Amazon throws me a few pennies for each of your purchases). And even you end up not buying that particular item, continue your own shopping spree for other items via that original link. Thank you! Amazon will throw me a few more pennies. Today’s items:
Gophinator gopher traps
Macabee gopher traps
GopherHawk gopher traps
Gopher Cinch Traps
Wilt-resistant cucumber variety: County Fair
Row covers for vegetables
Finally…
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(As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases from possible links mentioned here.)