Hello again,
Those annoying gophers, it turns out, LOVE garlic. They have eaten 6 whole heads of our garlic this year. I applied a castor oil solution to their holes near the garlic. That seemed to keep them away for a day and a half, but then they returned. I loaded up our gopher/mole repeller with fresh "C" batteries and placed it right near the garlic. So far it is keeping them back a little bit, it seems.
The gophers also seem to have killed our Blackjack Fig Tree which was a great producer of black Mission-type figs. The gophers ate the roots of the tree last season, and the tree was quite wobbly, but we thought it would survive. The Under Gardener staked it up quite well, but I noticed a few days ago that the tree had not leafed out at all, while our other fig tree has both leaves and some small figs. I weeded around the dead stick of a tree and watered well, hoping to bring the thing back to life, but I think it is a goner. I'll keep an eye on it for a few more days, as there may be some roots left (and there was a bit of budding at the end of each branch), but it looks like it is headed for the wood pile.
