I Have Been Robbed!!!

I just discovered that some creature helped him/herself to all my heirlom tomatoes - well, almost all of them., and that is a lot of tomatoes.   I am guessing 75 tomatoes are gone.

Lovely green tomatoes in various stages of development - now in some happy creature's tummy...

and NOT in mine.

Some plants were snapped off, most simply stripped of fruit.    The Jetsetter is completely gone - I suppose the theif took it home as some sort of morbid trophy. 

I am heart-sick.

I have had to grow tomatoes in containers because we don't have a proper vegetable garden.  Growing in containers has been a big learning curve for me.  Figuring out the mix of soil to manure, watering frequency, etc.  I protect the larger plants with wire cages - making a corral for the smaller ones that don't need support yet.  The corral is blocked to outside intruders, or so I thought.

This year, my plants have been healthy, and loaded with blossoms and quickly growing heavy with fruit.

Sigh.

I suspect it was a racoon.  It is possible that a combo of deer and raccoon had a feast. 

Gwen, if you are reading this, it/they even ate the lone Earl of Edgecomb.

Tonight I'll borrow the neighbors "have a heart" trap and see what I get.  And I will "have a heart' and not wring its little theiving neck, but rather release it down by the river. 

And I'll spray McNasty's all over the place to help avoid a second harvest (as if there could be one!!!). 

It is enough to make me want to cry.

I have done a count.  There are three tomatoes left - about golf ball size.  There are a few pea sized baby fruit, but everything else is gone - stripped.  Even the cherry tomatoes are cleaned off... I am thinking raccoon now.

If you scroll down the page a bit, you can read a happier tomato post.

I am opening a bottle of wine.