It's no surprise to anyone that I'm an avid gardener. I love gardening because I am always learning something new. Today I am going to discuss the tomato problem. I learned a great secret two years ago and I will share it because I hear my Aunt and Uncle are having similar challenges.
Everytime my tomatoes would ripen, the squirrels would pluck them, take one bit of them and leave them strewn throughout the yard. Sometimes they stole them all together. Here's a photo I found on the internet that illustrates it perfectly:
Sure, everyone wants to eat fruit with a rodent bite.
The last time this happened. I pulled all the tomato plants, swore profusely, and ranted that I would never grow tomatoes again. THE VERY NEXT DAY...just to add insult to injury, the squirrels stole my neighbor's tomatoes and threw them all over my yard again :( So I didn't grow tomatoes--no big deal--until 2 years ago when my neighbor Bill told me his solution. It was so easy!
Bill said that he puts bowls of water near his tomato plants. He said, "The squirrels don't want the fruit as much as they want the fluid. I never have a problem with bites or theft."
Last year I tried his solution. And it worked! I even put some extra bowls around the garden and the squirrels responded positively.
I wasn't really thrilled to become a bartender for rodents but I did begin to think more sympathetically. Our summers often have weeks of dryness (for example, we are 4 inches below the normal rainfall right now).
With fruit developing these weeks, I've placed the tomato bowls. Each morning, as I wander through the garden, I make sure the bowls still are full of water.
So if you have any problems with tomato thievery, you may want to try this method yourself. Happy Gardening!
2 comments:
WOW I would never have thought of that as a solution - so cool! The critters get what they want, and you get what YOU want (and spent time and $ growing) :) I haven't checked our tomatoes lately but I don't think they're as far along as yours are - they're planted in front of the back yard fence so they don't get as much sun as they might like. By harvest time, though, we'll be swimming in tomatoes - I freeze whatever we don't use so the more - the merrier :D We only have tomatoes and cucumbers in the veg garden - once things are ready, we'll be having cucumber/tomato salad every night for supper :) We've already harvested 2 batches of rhubarb, the raspberries are ripening now, and the strawberries are just about finished. It's been REALLY dry here so our grass looks awful, but at least we're keeping the gardens watered :D
I'm going to have to remember this!!!!!!! Thanks Mickie!
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