Gopher-Proof Tomatoes

Gotta have home grown tomatoes!

We live near an open hillside, and since the years-long drought in our area and the 2017 Thomas fire, it seems many critters have been coming out of the hills looking for greener pastures. Gophers have become a major problem. Hey, gophers, there are plenty of weeds in my yard. If you would eat those you would be welcome guests instead of hated pests!

As you can see in the second photo, the gophers not only eat my plants from under the surface, they also pop up on the surface and eat from the top of the soil. Here I planted the tomato plant with a 'basket' underneath fashioned from 1/4" wire mesh. I have a tomato cage around the plant and a ring of chicken wire surrounding the cage to a height of about a foot. The wily gopher came up inside the chicken wire, but outside the wire basket. He was then able to sit and chomp on the tomato plant at his leisure, destroying a good portion of it.

I'm pretty sure all I've been doing the last couple of years is building a fun obstacle course for the critters.

I didn't want to go through the trouble and expense of building raised beds; I just wanted a way to protect my plants and vegetables using items I had around the garden.

1/4 inch wire mesh or similar. A larger mesh is too big, in my opinion, and those toothy critters can still do damage. For each pot you use you will need a square about 2" larger than the diameter of the pot. Available at garden centers - I buy it locally by the linear foot (36" wide). It's fairly inexpensive.

Wire cutters

Gloves - the wire can be sharp

Plastic pots, nice sturdy ones, not the thin plastic ones. At least 6" diameter, up to 18" or so, depending on what you are planting.

Shovel, hoe, garden trowel - whatever tools you would normally use to prepare the soil and plant your tomatoes.

Soil amendments

Tomato cages - one per plant

Chicken wire - optional. This might be helpful if you also have bunnies waiting to eat your tender plants (they loved my freesias).

Prepare the soil where you will plant your tomatoes. Turn the soil, add amendments, etc. Take a plastic pot - I had some around the yard from recent plant purchases, from 12" to 18" diameter. I liked the 16" best. With clippers or a hand saw, cut the bottom out of the pot. It doesn't have to be pretty.

Take a square of wire mesh at least one inch wider than the diameter of the pot. Bend it to cover the open bottom of the pot. 3) Dig the hole big enough to accommodate the width of the pot, plus a couple of inches to spare. Decide how deep you want the pot to sit in the hole. The idea is that the pot forms a wall well above ground level so that critters can't just walk up to the base of your plant, and the wire mesh makes a barrier that roots can grow through but gophers can't get past. I think with the finished arrangement, most of the tops of my pots are 8" to 10" above the surface of the ground outside of the pot. Dry fit until you have it where you want it.

Wrestle the wire and the pot into the hole. Fill the pot with enough soil to bring the surface up to about 6" from the top of the pot. This is a matter of preference. I wanted enough of a gap between soil surface inside the pot and the top of the pot to make it difficult for critters to get in.

Plant the vegetable plant inside the pot. Added bonus - the pot creates a nice basin for watering. Create another basin outside the pot. Water thoroughly inside and outside (I continue to water both inside and outside the pot for the life of the plant) Add the tomato cage and chicken wire, if using.

The first two photos here were taken the morning after I planted my tomatoes. There had been a lot of activity in the garden lately, and I had seen fresh holes nearby for several days. In the photo looking straight down into the green pot, notice the dark mounded dirt from 6 o'clock to about 1 o'clock. That is a gopher tunnel all around the outside of the pot. No penetration into the pot or damage to the plant. The 8th photo shows all of the exploratory holes made by the gopher in the vicinity of the plastic pots. Foiled! Since taking these photos four months ago, I have not found any more fresh holes in my tomato garden.

I wondered how long it would be until the aggressive burrowers figured out how to get to my plants - but so far it has NOT happened. Success! It has now been about 4 months since I planted my tomatoes, and the gophers have not gotten a single plant. Recently I planted some vines in another part of the yard and employed the same method to protect the roots of the new plants. It has become my practice to at least put wire under nearly all the plants I put into my garden now.