Garden: Attempt One

My first attempt at a garden in our new house was a rather pathetic one.  Along our side fence we had a retaining wall that was about 2 feet wide and 2 feet deep and ran the length of our entire backyard.  I thought this would provide the perfect raised garden bed without much work.  So I went about to weeding and tilling and fertilizing and planting.  I didn't know much about gardening (still working on that part) so I just grabbed some plants from Home Depot, stuck them in, and waited.  Here is what came out of it. 

It may not look like much, but I was thrilled!  I'd happily wander outside every evening after work and see what new goodies I could pick.  We'd have zucchini-based products for breakfast, lunch and dinner (since zucchini was the best grower and made me feel like a gardening champ).  But then, something tragic happened; my plants started to disappear.  One day there would be a gorgeous, thriving zucchini plant and the next the entire plant would be gone with only one or two leaves left above the soil.  There was a thief in my midst, a vegetable murderer: I had gophers.

 (image from earth-cards.com)

Evil demon creatures eating up my vegetables and hard work.  I couldn't figure out a way to get rid of them.  Poisoning was not an option because I didn't want to be responsible for some poor neighborhood cat eating a poisoned gopher.  Smoking them out wasn't feasible since I didn't want those chemicals soaking into my garden's soil, and setting traps wouldn't work since I am a sissy and I don't think I could handle removing a dead/mostly dead rodent from a trap.  My conundrum continued (and so did those rotten gophers) until my garden ended up looking like this: 

 

Look at that rodent-ridden barren wasteland.  I hated seeing my plants destroyed.  After all, I had raised them from seedlings.  I had watered and weeded and fed them.  We were pals (not in the sing my plants to sleep way, but in the open my windows in the morning look out at the beautiful vegetation and say, "Hello garden!" kind of  a way).  I decided that if I was going to give gardening another shot, I couldn't have my heart broken again.  I would have to find a way to outsmart the  tricky cratogeomys castanops - scientific speak for gopher.  My research began.

Have you ever dealt with gophers?  What did you do to get rid of them?  Or are you a better person than me and you have learned how to peacefully cohabitate with nature?