Effing Squirrels

My garden has not been anywhere near the success this year as last year. The weather, my lame leg preventing me from spending hours tending it, and the worst problem of all, some undiagnosed tomato plant killer. Russ found an NC State lab where I can take my failed plants long with a quart of dirt, to have them analyze and hopefully diagnose my issue.

Despite my failing plants, the few which are left had plenty of fruit on them before I left for a quick two days to the beach. I came home, ready to harvest, only to discover a squirrel or more likely a platoon of squirrels had decided they wanted to eat those ripening tomatoes. I found no less than six, big, either fully ripe or partially ripe tomatoes half eaten, strewn around the garden. One was up on top of the garden fence, one was dropped between a fence and a outside raised bed box, one was just upside down in the bed.

It might not be so bad if the squirrels ate the whole tomato and left no evidence. No, instead they eat a small portion and leave the rest of a once beautiful fruit now decimated. If my plants were still healthy and producing I would not be so stingy about feeding wildlife, but these are the last precious fruit from a very poor season.

Those squirrels have not taken one bite out of any of the thousands of cucumbers, which have been my bumper crop, no just the prized tomatoes.

I first have to figure out how to successfully grow tomatoes for next year’s garden, but as soon as that education is complete I am going to turn how to keep the squirrels away. I am not opposed to electric fences.