Help! Squirrels are harvesting more of my tomatoes than me :-(

[Anjuna]

Hi all, I'm new here - first post.

I have a good crop of tomatoes out in my garden - mostly green still - but the local squirrels are beating me to them as they slowly ripen They not only select the biggest and ripest ones but also many unripe fruit, and at the current rate I will end up with very few for myself. The weather has cooled substantially in the last couple of weeks so instead of having a glut of ripe tomatoes I am getting a slow trickle - barely enough for my evening meal.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to control the squirrels, keep them away from my plants etc? I have tried placing plastic bags around some of the lower trusses in the hope that the bags will restrict the squirrels' vision and access, but I'm not yet sure whether this will do much.

I am in London and the squirrels are of the grey variety - officially vermin. I live in a very leafy area and there are squirrels everywhere.

So please, any suggestions much appreciated. Thanks

[solanaceae]

Are you positive it's squirrels eating them? Have you actually seen them take the fruits? Never known any in my area to eat them.

Mind you in the past couple of weeks I have noticed the odd hole or two in a couple of toms, which looked odd...

[Anjuna]

Definitely squirrels - have caught them red-handed. Yesterday I saw one running along the top of the fence with quite a large tomato in its mouth. It then climbed an adjacent tree and sat there eating it in front of me (until I fired off a stone in its direction anyway!)

They also tend to leave half eaten tomatoes around the place, and claw marks in a lot of the ripening ones.

[solanaceae]

That's awful, sorry to hear that

I wouldn't put bags around your plants as that could increase the likelihood of blight to take hold and you certainly won't have any fruit then.

I found this page What are some smells that squirrels hate? - Ask Jeeves. Maybe you could try spraying this mix of 'Jalapeño peppers mixed with vinegar and water' around your plants and see if that does anything. Though the method I prefer is to have a cat or cats patrolling the garden

[Bren In Pots]

Firstly hello and welcome to the vine

Can you cover your toms with netting securing it well so they can't lift it ?

[Anjuna]

Can you cover your toms with netting securing it well so they can't lift it ?

Just by chance I bumped into a neighbour who has offered me some netting to try! She has finished with it for this year at her allotment and was going to put it into storage. Hopefully that will be enough to keep the critters out.

In the meantime I have sprinkled some hot pepper powder on some of the part eaten tomatoes so the squirrels should be in for a good surprise if they take another bite

[Anjuna]

I wouldn't put bags around your plants as that could increase the likelihood of blight to take hold and you certainly won't have any fruit then.

The bags are open at the top so the sun can reach the tomatoes and there is plenty of circulation. My theory is that by obstructing the view from below (the squirrels are quite short ) they are less likely to target those fruit. Seems to have worked thus far.... But yes, I will be careful about blight. Hopefully the area will be netted within the next day or two.

[BUFFS]

I would hang a tomato (smeared with mustard or some tobacco sauce or the like) he wont come back, i did this to my peanut bird feeder as they were chewing through the wire to get the peanuts, they were emptying it each day, but they have not been back since so it does work...

[Penellype]

Squirrels are remarkably intelligent and acrobatic - hence those mission impossible adverts they had a few years ago (I forget the product - lousy advertising!). I had serious squirrel problems at my last house, when they pinched a load of strawberries. A fruit cage had no effect whatsoever - they simply got inside it.

With tomatoes, once the fruit has started to change colour it will almost always ripen if you pick it (unless the plant has got blight). I pick all my outdoor tomatoes when they start to show a little colour and ripen them indoors, which also gives you a bigger crop if you are unlucky enough to get blight as you will have harvested more before the blight strikes than you would have done if you had left them to ripen. This won't stop the squirrels taking the green ones, but it might save some of the ones that get as far as ripening.

[Philthy]

Air Rifle.

As you've stated, they're vermin.
Entertaining for some, but a giant pain in the you know where for others.

If you're not enthused by that idea, and your other deterrents don't work, you might try trapping them. Bear in mind they'll still need humanely dispatching - don't release them somewhere else as that in itself is illegal, such is their pest status.

[meteor]

Red squirrels visit my garden regularly and as they are now so scarce, due to spread of the non native grey squirrel, I don't want to harm them. If they start to nibble on anything I give it a spray of my home made chilli pepper spray. Simply boil up a handful of chillis for a few minutes , I use a variety I grow called Apache just because I find them too hot to eat myself, strain on into a old clean used spray bottle that hasn't previously held any harmful chemicals add drop of soft soap and spray on the crop. If you don't have chillis substitute with any hot pepper sauce instead.

[mike69]

and they are nice eaten

[Lumpy]

Hello and welcome to the Vine.
I have absolutely no advice to offer you about your problem as I find myself laughing too much to think straight!
I do hope you find a way of controlling your squirrels!