You Grow Girl™

As much as I hate to do it, I must make a formal apology to you. This is very, very hard for me to do. It doesn't mean that I like you, though. I still hate you and I will still badmouth you all over this journal, but I did accuse you unjustly. So here goes...

Dear squirrels that live in my backyard,

I still hate each and everyone of you!

Yep! I caught the bastards red-handed. Do you think the dog bothered to bark and alert me? What good is she? Lazy bum!

Anyway, these damn birds just suck the life out of the tomatoes and leave the shell. I've had to pick them before they were vine-ripened just to beat them to it. In short, I haven't enjoyed my tomatoes at all

So I have my tomato plants in tomato jail. I removed some rusty old chicken wire that was attached to my fence to put around the pots. Why it was attached, I have no idea. I'm sure I've ruined my husband's wire cutters since they are for cutting electrical wire and not chicken wire in the process.

The neighbor's dog (whom I also hate cuz she never, ever stops barking. She barks at air) barked at me the whole time I was removing it. Do you think my dog barks back to tell her to shut the hell up? No, she just stands there wagging her tail. I'm sure I'll require a tetnus shot when this whole saga is over from scraping myself with this rusty piece of crap wire. If I end up with lockjaw, I'll know why.

I read somewhere that if you put plastic bags around your tomatoes, it will scare away the birds when they flap in the wind. As you can see, I tried that. It would probably also help if it was windy. During these long, hot, humid, gross days of summer, the wind isn't around much. It didn't work. So I decided to buy some bird netting, which is working fine.

I can see why it works. I kept getting tangled up in it myself. I've got enough netting to last me 10 seasons of tomato growing. There's only one problem, though. I'm gonna have to cut my way through the netting to them.

But at least I'll have vine-ripened tomatoes!