Reacting instinctively to Ellie Mae’s sudden appearance at the front door the other morning, I arose from the kitchen table, latte clutched firmly in hand, and ventured over to hook a sister up. What a comical dog! She’s got the tail in overdrive, but she keeps dipping her head, and almost pawing at the floor, as if to say, “…for you, Dad.”
Is this a dog or a cat? And what IS that in her mouth?
After all I am the guy who spent all of last summer and fall, utilizing a half-dozen bonified gopher traps, in a fruitless effort to bag even one of the little varmints. I tried every strategy known to mankind, including wearing gloves to help eliminate my scent.
Using bamboo, I pinpointed the direction the tunnel was traveling, and aligned the trap(s) accordingly. I spread them out wherever I had dead or dying plants, and I “stayed on top of it” religiously. If I had devoted any more time to the endeavor, I might as well have taken up residence in a lawn chair, air-rifle in hand, and waited for them to come to me.
All to no avail: I never caught even one.
Is it a coincidence? Did Ellie Mae just get lucky? She is inordinately interested in the critters that abound around her. I mentioned to Gluten-Free Mama how focused she gets when she spots quail. She is aquiver with anticipation at the sight of rabbits, squirrels, deer, ravens, and/or turkeys when she spots them.
She loves to dig and I always wondered what was the source of her enthusiasm. Now I know that she is a great hunter, one to be cherished as resourceful and resolute. Let’s face it: She get results, unlike my paltry efforts last summer.
I will inform you, however, that I do have a plan of action in place, based on what I have observed over the past three summers. On average it seems the gophers get one tomato plant in ten, across the board. I know gophers are everywhere because I encounter the tunnels everywhere. My question has always been, why those particular plants, and not others? Why not all, for that matter, since the gophers seem so capable of destruction?
I have concluded that either the gophers instinctively sense which are the weaker plants, and attack them, or that the gophers go after all the plants uniformly, and only the weakest die. In either case the solution would seem obvious: Prepare the soil well and provide ample water, something that has not always been the case, and prepare all tomato plants equally to withstand the gopher attacks.
If there are no “weak” plants, then there should be no casualties.
The best defense is a strong offense, and the best offense is the one which employs the most viable weapons. Sufficient water, organic compost, appropriate amendments and a whole lotta love-and secret weapon Ellie Mae-are going to be enough this summer. My bold-even audacious prediction-is that gophers will not factor into this summer’s productivity.
I am planting fewer plants, but expecting double the yield from last summer, simply because the tomatoes themselves will be twice the size. HeadSodBuster and I had a series of consultations as we examined forward progress last July and August, and adjusted water application accordingly. This included reducing water once the fruit began to develop to avoid splitting. The only splitting I want to see this summer, is the gophers splitting the scene. You know? Far out, solid and in the old groove.
As for Ellie Mae, she is a rock star and I’m doubling her salary. Since zero, doubled, is still zero, I’ll just have to love and appreciate her more than ever, easy to do when I think back to her exquisite offering the other morning.
I was going to skin it and hang the pelt on the gate, the way the rancher used to do with coyotes, but I did not move quickly enough-Ellie Mae ate it.
What can I say? Better to eat gophers than chickens, no?
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