Throughout the fall I have noticed I am getting a lot of tomatoes chewed on and figured it was squirrels since I have seen a lot of them the past couple of months. Turns out it is worse than I thought. A few weeks ago my cable went out and they finally found the problem was my main line from the street was chewed up by squirrels. This past weekend I had all my new fall plants placed on a table in the middle of the yard to harden off for setting out this week. Went out yesterday morning and noticed two large squirrels up on the table. When I checked they had eaten all but a couple of the plants down to the soil line. I won't be having much of a fall garden since I have lost almost all my broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage plants.
I guess it is time to limber up the old pellet rifle and see if I can start thinning them out so I can at least have some spring plants. It has been several years since I thinned the population here and I think I waited too long. I should have started seriously thinning them out in the summer when I noticed so many of them around but they weren't really causing any major problems then. Another lesson learned the hard way I guess.
Bill