Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Tomato thief in my garden

In spring I planted two different kinds of tomatoes in my garden, Cherokee Purple and Chocolate Cherry. The weather has not been kind to my tomatoes this year. It has been a very cool summer, and then on top of that we had a drought. I started to get tomatoes on my Chocolate Cherry plant and then my husband ran them over with the lawn mower (yes, earlier in the summer he ran over one of my hostas too). Then I finally had six tomatoes on my Cherokee Purple plant that were just started to turn purple/red, and what do I find? Something (squirrels, chipmunks, opossums???) stole my tomatoes off the vine and started eating them, leaving them for dead in the lawn. I am now down to two tomatoes, which I have brought in the house to ripen. The good news is that as I was pulling the remaining tomatoes off the vine, I found a whole chocolate cherry plant that wasn't touched and had tomatoes on it! Even better it's in a spot where my husband can't reach with the lawn mower. Now I just have to keep the critters away.

4 comments:

Jenn's Cooking Garden! said...

Doesnt that drive you nutz! Darn animals could at least eat the whole thing and not tease you with whats left on the ground!

Hosta Nerd said...

I know, it's like when the rabbits will "snip" something off just when it's ready to bloom. Then just let it lay on the ground not even eat it.

GardenMom said...

raccoons have done that in my garden before. They take one big bite and then put it down and get another one. Darn things!

Hosta Nerd said...

So far this summer my neighbors have caught 11 opossums. They are nasty!