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- #451
Blue-Jay
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Need Advice. The network beans were doing great this year until a pocket gopher moved into the bean row yesterday. He has started eating them and pulling them into his burrow from what I can tell. Most have beans already that are as long as my finger. What should I do? I could dig them all up and move them to another area. Try and get the gopher somehow? Need advice, otherwise I think I will likely loose them all.
Bean plants don't transplant well. If they do survive and grow new leaves it will probably be to late in the season to get seed from them by transplanting. I would get rid of the gopher. perhaps you can stick a garden hose down his hole and flush him out and try to devies a way to trap him when he comes up out of the hole. You could also try an exterminator. Perhaps set a rat trap with a fresh bean in it to get him. I never had trouble with gophers.
I had a vole in my backyard this past January and I got Orkin to get rid of him. Expensive, but I valued my garden more than what it cost me for the extreminator. They set a trap for him with poisonous food and the vole took the bait.
Does sound like if you don't get rid of the gopher your crop will be gone. I really don't think in your season I would try to transplant bean plants. At this point in time the plants are producing pods and have an extensive root system to support all the plant tissue. I don't think you could get enough of the root system for the plants to carry on normally.
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