In the last 3 days, something has been getting into my tomatoes!! I’ve lost 4 green ones and two almost-ripe ones. I’m fairly sure it’s the crow family that hangs around - I find the tomatoes lying on the ground with the pulp stabbed out of them in a couple of places. I did catch a squirrel yesterday stealing a tomato out of a separate, small kitchen garden - the tomato was about 1/3 as big as he was & he dropped it a couple of times, trying to make it to the apple tree. Although Mr. Squirrel is no longer with us, I found 3 “stabbed” tomatoes again this a.m. I’ve put up a ladder on each 4’ side of the raised bed with a long board down the 8’ length & that is supporting bird netting that we used on a fig bush last year. I had to use ladders because the tomatoes are pretty tall & I needed to get the netting up fairly high. Bricks are holding down the edges. This is temporary until I can get some pvc pipe and make hoops to support the netting. This should happen over the weekend ...... can’t wait (the ladder situation looks terrible, but it works!).
Meanwhile, some “trivia” .... been using a pole tree trimmer & my rope came loose. I couldn’t figure out how to tie it again so I looked it up .... if you ever need to retie a trimmer, here’s a link:
http://www.cnwes.com/cpgl/productimg/200631015544181-1%20.jpg
Interesting tool. Thanks for the link. We have had issues with squirrels and tomatoes before, but not birds, course, I’ve never really seen a crow here either.
I’ll never forget when my youngest daughter was about 5 or 6 year’s old, Hubby found some green tomatoes with a bite or two out of each one. He accused her of doing it. She denied it.
Then he accused her of lying. I suggested she might actually be telling the truth, since he didn’t actually see her do it. That there really caused a dust up with him declaring that SQUIRRELS DO NOT EAT GREEN TOMATOES.
A few days later, I was sitting at the table looking out the patio doors and I was a squirrel pick a tomato, take a bite and throw it away. I brought Hubby in and let him see the little theif at work. Red - faced for sure.LOL
My experience is that they usually leave them alone till they are more reddish colored, unless there is a scarcity of water. So I try to leave a bit of water sitting in plastic containers so the critters can drink it instead of eating tomatoes.
First go out and find the hottest hot sauce then strain some of it through a paint strainer or tea towels to get the tomato sauce out. All you want is the hot stuff. pour into a hand sprayer small one add water actually (quite a bit) and spray on the tomatoes (ONLY). Squirrels will stay away from them. It works for me.
In my mind's eye there's Qiviut chasing down squirrels and crows with a baseball bat sized cucuzza.
I made cucuzzoodles with my cranky zoodle thingie today. Because the cucuzza is softer in the middle, and has lots of seeds the entire length.. they didn't work as good as a trombetta in which the long neck has no seeds.
I did some of the noodle shaped cucuzza, but most I diced so I can do that Italian stew.
I gave some of the noodle thingies to my gunsmith, and he was going to try them on a pizza..I would not have thought of doing that with them.
