I have no gardening skills whatsoever (but I did grow up with a massive garden that my mom rocked) -- but I say blow-up owl. I think that sounds like a...(wait for it)... HOOT! Ha ha.

Seriously, though, Stew, your garden sounds fabulous. Critters will often be an issue, I think. I remember with my mom it was always her against deer.

xoxo, Ols
ols | 07.26.07 - 11:35 am | #

Wait, Ols. Are you saying Linda had deer in O-town???

p.s. HOOT!!!!!!
Stew | Homepage | 07.26.07 - 11:47 am | #

Have you checked *very carefullly* for tomato worms or tabacco worms?

I think "boo hiss" is one of the best labels ever.
JENIQ | Homepage | 07.26.07 - 11:59 am | #

JeniQ: good point. No, I've not looked very well for either type of worm. And they're tricky little (large!)devils too, making themselves look like branches...

(But we're also talking sharp CHUNKS of teethmarks.)
Stew | Homepage | 07.26.07 - 2:26 pm | #

Totally, deer. You probably didn't notice this when you were there, what with the tasks and the revelry, but a couple of blocks from our house is a nature-filled lake and environs. So, nature would crawl up the hill into our 'hood and eat things. Deer and slugs.

xoxo, Ols
ols | 07.26.07 - 6:19 pm | #

Slugs I get.
Stew | Homepage | 07.26.07 - 7:51 pm | #

I think whatever the varmint turns out to be, you should get a blow-up owl anyway.

BLOW-UP OWL FTW.
Jerry | Homepage | 07.26.07 - 8:43 pm | #

Will do, y'all
Stew | Homepage | 07.26.07 - 8:57 pm | #

HOOT.
Jerry | Homepage | 07.26.07 - 11:22 pm | #

The one-bite-taken thing makes me think it's probably some sort of caterpillar - we had just those symptoms last year in our jungle of tomatoes (we, er, let things get a little out of hand in the greenhouse... ). I second Jeni - check really carefully...
Kitchen Witch | Homepage | 07.27.07 - 4:13 am | #

Hmmmm. OK, will do. The owl will freak out the other birds, but I prefer tomatoes to birds during tomato season.
Stew | Homepage | 07.27.07 - 6:28 am | #

My experience with growing tomatoes is from a Very Hot Western State, but the critters that ate my ripe tomatoes were most definitely birds. I had a blow-up owl AND a blow-up snake, and I would move them around every day or so. They worked for a while, and then the birds learned that they were fake and started spitting tomato seeds onto them as they dined on my bounty.

What the blow-up snake did do was nearly give my elderly neighbor a heart attack when he came through the backyard one time to tell us something. Oops!
minty | Homepage | 07.27.07 - 3:12 pm | #

The one I get is going to have a bobble head. I can also play the screech owl screech out the window to really freak them out. Heh.
Stew | Homepage | 07.27.07 - 3:27 pm | #

A bobble-head blow-up owl. Goddamn, I love this country.
Jerry | Homepage | 07.28.07 - 1:24 am | #

I went the Minty route, actually!

The bobble-headed owl was indeed fantastic, but it cost $27 as compared to $9 for the blowup one. (No, it wasn't both bobble-headed AND blowup, sorry to say.)

So now I've got the snake sitting out on one of my tomato plants.
Stew | Homepage | 07.28.07 - 6:49 am | #

What about a motion sensor activated sprinkler?
Sean | Homepage | 07.30.07 - 9:18 am | #