We Might Have Known

We should have known that the temporary fencing around the tomato in the grow bag would not prove to be much of an obstacle to the California Ground Squirrels.

We went out again yesterday evening and found that they had climbed over the fencing, chewed through the nylon Cindy had put around one of the tomatoes they had chomped previously, and then, apparently not liking the taste of nylon, moved on to take a bite out of one of the green tomatoes.  The varmints also left a half-eaten green Tomatillo in the driveway, too.

Tomatillo

I love the Chinese-lantern shape of these Tomatillos, which are also planted in a grow bag in front of the garage.  The paper thin outer husk covers the developing fruit inside, as we were well able to see from the cross section left for us by the squirrels.

We may have to re-think the grow bags; there's just no way to protect the plants and the tomatoes and tomatillos on them from the varmints.

The problem is that right now there is just no vacant space in the garden where we can move these plants so that they would be inside one of the enclosures protected by the anti-varmint panels.  All the spaces are now planted with other tomatoes, squash and beans.

We will have plenty of fresh produce this summer, but it's still annoying to have the varmints start sampling it before we get any of it.