When Will We Ever Learn?

I had planned to take a picture this morning of the tomatoes that Cindy had planted in the blue grow bag and put in front of the garage door.

The plant is from a cutting of the very vigorous plant from last year that she finally had to tear out earlier this year to make room for more plants.  She rooted the cutting, planted it in the grow bag and hooked it up to her drip irrigation system.

The plant has continued to be vigorous and is now loaded with tomatoes, including two that were getting redder and plumper by the day.  We thought they weren't quite ripe yet, but thought they would be ready in a couple of days and Cindy put BLTs on the menu for next week.   First tomatoes of the season, yum.

So last night when I went out to bring in the key to the garage, I took another look at the two ripening tomatoes.  And noticed something missing.

Like a honkin' big chomp missing out of each of the two ripening tomatoes.  Guess the squirrels thought they were ripe enough.

So we did the traditional closing of the barn door after the horses, or in this case the tomatoes, were gone.  Cindy put some old panty hose over the biggest tomatoes, including the bitten ones, and we circled some of the plastic fencing around the bag and closed it with clothes pins.

Not that that will really stop the little varmints, of course, but if they go for those particular tomatoes again, they'll just get a mouthful of nylon.

We'll probably see them wearing the nylons around the yard next.  Or see them on the news sticking up convenience stores.  We'll know who they are by the tomato seeds on their furry little nylon-covered chins.