Gopher Proofing the Raised Garden Bed

I gardened for years in Montclair with no gopher problem; then, about four or five years ago, gophers suddenly appeared. Every spring, when the soil was still soft from the winter rains, I would spot above-ground evidence of their underground tunnels. Later in the season, I would find that the gophers had harvested my vegetables from underground!

So, our son, Jason, and I decided to gopher-proof the raised bed. The Sunset instructions recommend lining the garden box with hardware cloth to keep out gophers and moles: http://www.sunset.com/garden/backyard-projects/ultimate-raised-bed-how-to-00400000011938/page5.html.

Additional research indicated that you should not use chicken wire because the mesh is too large; the hardware cloth mesh is small enough to keep burrowing intruders out, but still give safe passage to worms. We had to sew together several strips of hardware cloth to create a large enough piece to cover the bottom of the frame. 

Lining the garden box frame with hardware cloth.
You can see the seams where we "sewed" together
several strips of mesh.

Attaching the hardware cloth to the garden box frame.
Our heavy-duty stapler was not strong enough; Jason decided
to use nails to secure the mesh to the frame.

We still have gophers, but they are thwarted from burrowing up to harvest vegetables. And we have other garden critters, like deer, mice, and birds, but that is another story! Next time - adding soil to the raised garden bed.