The War on Gophers

At this point, I consider my garden a battlefield.  The plants can't move to save themselves and they can't fight back from where they stand.  The gophers are mobile, hungry and very content to have found such an accommodating haven.  I'm certain that they plan to stay -- all 200-plus of them.  The garden and the gophers cannot coexist.

They got the lilies in the front garden a few days ago.  That morning, they were tall and upright:  after lunch they were lying in the dirt.   Every day I find that the gophers have destroyed something else.  They've begun nibbling on my tomatoes...

As sorrows go, this is definitely not a catastrophically terrible one.  But it's difficult to give up on my garden because of these rodents -- at least, not without a fight.

The lilies in the area behind the house are still gopher-free.  I'm glad that I didn't plant all of them in the front bed.  However, I've discovered that a gopher can climb up even a tall pot, so these lilies aren't safe.

Part of me is ready to just give up on the garden -- at least for this year.  However, the gardener in me isn't ready to abandon my green friends quite yet.  So it's war (at least for now).