The Silver Screen Oasis

Does anyone have any advice on how to grow cherry tomatoes in a container without having every squirrel, chipmunk, and bird eating them? I don't wish to deny the little dickens, I'd just like to try to have a few tomatoes fresh from the patio. Thanks in advance for your help.

Removable chicken-wire cover?

A motion-activated circuit connected to a 12-Gauge will handle the animals well but your neighbors may not appreciate fully how it is saving the neighborhood from night-foraging wee-beasties.

Thanks for the replies---real and facetious!

I've developed a game.

Backstory: The Chairman of the Board & founder of Mrs. ChiO's company raises hundreds of heirloom tomatoes from seed in his greenhouse. Each Spring he produces about a 20-page booklet describing each variety - growing conditions, taste, etc. - with color pictures. We always get two plants of 3 or 4 varieties. And grow organically, of course.

Game: The humans and squirrels each have a team. The human team tries to determine the appropriate time to pick a nice vine-ripened tomato (or one that will fully ripen in a brown paper bag) and the squirrel team tries to determine the precise nano-second before the human team picks a tomato in order to take one bite out of it and leave it on the backyard walk so that the human team can readily find it and better keep score. Scoring is announced thusly: #*%@# squirrels!

This season's standings: Squirrels - 42 & Humans - 23.

Just as with the Cubs - Wait'll next year!

Our older daughter and son-in-law (and the two most beautiful granddaughters in this and all parallel Universes) use a flexible netting. I think that their squirrels are deterred and take Amtrak to our backyard. We shall try that (netting, not Amtrak) next year. Maybe they'll get caught in the netting after feasting and we'll at least get some good ol' squirrel gravy out of the deal.

Maybe your squirrels want to compare your heirloom tomatoes to the "garden variety." Based on the fact that they only take one bite, perhaps they are not the connoisseurs of horticulture that they think they are.

Funny post, ChiO! I've heard that netting can work too.