Do you have any idea how much time and effort I put into those tomatoes? The hours of fertilizing, the weeding, the anguish when my whole first planting died? I put love into those tomatoes, you evil little bastards. And now, when I go to harvest the first fruits of my hard work, you disease ridden vermin take them away from me! I declare war!
Please help me Green-thumbed Dopers! How do I keep my tomatoes out of their creepy, human-like little hands?
Is popping some caps in they ass out of the quesstion ?
Yeah, prolly. Cathartic, tho.
Maybe start leaving some milk/cat food out to attract a few neighborhood kitties to patrol the area? Get a dog? Dogs love to chase squirrels…
If traditional cap busting is a problem for your area, a paintball gun may be a viable alternative. Sting the rodents often enough, maybe they’ll go elsewhere…
Yeh, fruit rats have been nibbling at mine. I’m finding incisor marks on some of the ripest and best fruit, so I’m going to have to go looking for the rat-trap we used last year.
Your speciesist, human-imperialist attitudes will ultimately lead you into conflict with the revolutionary cadres of the Rodentia Liberation Front. You would be wise to reconsider. Rat on!
Why don’t you just give 'em a good peck?
(I feel your pain, deer got our corn - all of it)
(yet no one, and nothing, is eating the 23,432 decorative gourds from the 6 plants Hubby put in “for fun - maybe the kids could do a craft project with 'em”)
Have you tried netting or some other means of dissuading the fluffy tailed rats? I’ve never had a problem with squirrels in my garden, so I don’t know if there’s a hope of this working or not.
My garden is protected by a pair of squirrel chasers named Molly and Abby. They haven’t caught one yet, but it’s just a matter of time (or so they believe 
).
“Screw you! Ever stop to think what was hidden in that ground before you dug it up to plant your damn tomato patch there? Three clues: they were edible, they were being stored there to allow us to survive over the fucking winter, and they rhymed with “putz!” So hell yeah, we’re taking your damn tomatoes now! Learn to like it, Skippy.”
I feel your pain. I used to put out paprika near my plants to keep the squirrels away. Then I was told that this causes unecessary pain the the squirrels eating my fruit. Then I stated buying it in bulk.
I feel your tomato pain. Sprinkle some cayenne or anything with capsaicin. It is not a 100% cure, but it does deter them.
You know you can eat squirrels. I hear they are good with tomato 
ALL UR TOMATOS IS BLONING TO US
Signed
THE SqUIRRELS
AH HAHA AHAH HAHA!
We didn’t have a problem with squirrels eating our tomatoes this year.
The birds got to them first.
You’ve trained your birds to attack squirrels! Cool! I wish I could teach mine to do that…
Just takes a little more patience than training a cat.
Of course, now we have blue jays that have acquired a taste for flesh.
[SIZE=1]Note to self: Proof read closer next time, dummy! Proof read closer![\SIZE]
The irony, it burns.
Ummm, I know for a fact that an freakishly and completely “beginner’s luck” (like, “I’ve never even held a BB gun before…aim at the squirrel?..well, okay, I know I can’t hit him because I’ve never even shot a rifle before…OMG!!! I HIT HIM IS HE HURT???”)well-aimed BB in the butt will keep at least one away.
Netting definately works. It saved my beautiful heirloom Brandywines to be eaten by stinkbugs.
Almost every single one of them.
I’ve had good luck keeping birds out of my berry patch by deploying large rubber snakes from the dollar store. You *must * move the snakes every day to give them that “alive, just waiting for something warm-blooded to come close enough to devour” appearence. I don’t know if it’ll work on squirrels, but it’s cheap and worth a try.