It’s been a bad year for pocket gophers. I’ve been cleaning up the garden for our annual big July 4th party, dealing with gopher damage and generally getting everything pretty-like. One large spot in the front–just about the first zone of the garden visitors will encounter–is totally bare and calls out for some new plants to fill in the space. But the last thing I wanted to do is to install something new that would turn into expensive gopher chow.

I decided that I would try to place some new plants in the dead zone, but wanted to see if I couldn’t try something to deter the gophers. Gopher bait pellets are popular, but I can’t say that they’ve worked for me. How can you tell if something is working when the creature you’re after lives 99.9% of the time underground and their damage seems to come in random spurts? And I worry about the cat discovering a poisoned gopher. Gopher-killing traps are popular, and it’s the one method that seems to have the best chance at success. Still I’m not sure I’m ready to go there.

I’ve tried castor bean-based repellant. I’ve tried blood meal. Both things that are supposed to keep the creatures at bay, but I don’t know that they’ve worked for me for longer than a few days. And the idea of spreading blood meal fertilizer around native plants at the start of what’s summer dormancy for many of them didn’t seem like too bright an idea. (Let me force feed you some bratwurst while you’re trying to get to sleep…) One thing I haven’t tried is chili powder.

I admit that this is just an experiment, maybe one that’s doomed to fail. The only things I have going on my side are the facts that, 1) there’s at least one commercial product out there that combines blood meal with chili powder, and 2) you sometimes see references on gopher control using chili, usually in combination with something like garlic. Since I don’t want to do blood meal, the chili powder alone might do something.

And if chili powder might work, why not use the most industrial-strength stuff you can your hands on? It’s not pepper spray, but the local Indian grocer sells 880 grams of extra-hot ground pepper for less than five dollars–less than half the price for the blood-meal/chili mixture I’ve seen. I cook with the stuff, but a half teaspoon will make a large batch of food sizzle and scare away most of my Ohio relatives. It might work for gophers, too.

So, into the planting holes I mixed up a recipe of soil mixed with generous amounts of the chili powder, about 1 quarter cup per hole. Next, into the holes go the three new San Miguel Island buckwheats. They’re not the most exotic of the California native plants, but I was pretty happy to find several well grown examples in a local generalist nursery. If you see a business doing something good, why not support them?

Finally the plants got a healthy top-dressing of the chili powder. What I didn’t use on the new plants I spread around a few other plants that seem to be favorite gopher menu items. This is how it looks before watering it in, pretty glaringly orange-red. It looks closer to normal after you soak it in a bit.

One Big Caution: Although chili powder is a natural product, it’s still a nasty irritant. Wear gloves. A respirator and goggles might be a good addition on a windier day. I’m not saying this for dramatic effect. Wind blew some in my eyes and I suffered the expected effect–no surprise. But I also rubbed my gloves on the side of my face, only to have my face burn like a second degree sunburn for half an hour.

Will all this fail and collapse into a pile of chili powder induced flames? Dunno, but it’ll be an interesting experiment.