My experience with tomato theft.

[Vince]

Well I have read postings about tomatoes being stolen, and now I can join the club of victims. I have a Heat wave plant that was planted in july, and it is completely loaded with Toms. I was looking forward to picking the first two ripe tomatoes from it today or tommorow. This morning I realized that the two large Heavily blushing tomatoes were gone, just vanished without a trace. Where I live animals usually leave some trace of their attacks, so I assume it was a human animal. It is not supprising that somebody would steal tomatoes from my yard because it is totally unfenced and there is a lot of foot traffic next to my house every day. On the Bright side during the summer in prime tomato time, none of my better tomatoes(Brandywines, Big Beef, Beef Steak) were molested. Well my fall Brandywines and Brandy boys are a ways off from harvest, so they are probably safe for the moment. I put a sighn on a stake near the plant in question reading(Take a tomato and I'll give you some Buck shot in your a....). Just Kidding, the sighn reads lease do not take any tomatoes if you ask me I will gladly share. If this problem continues I will just have to avoid vine ripening and pick at the sighn of first blush. Good luck everybody.

Vince

[landarc]

Great, so now I am going to have to pick them at first blush instead of waiting for them to ripen.

Really, it may not be surprising, but, it is still dissappointing to me that people don;t have any respect for other people. I mean, they do have to enter your yard and steal (operative word here) something. Sad

[scottfsmith]

Vince, I have at various points thought that 2-leggeds were stealing my tomatoes etc, only to spot a 4-legged doing the dirty deed a few days later. I have seen squirrels taking my tomatoes multiple times this year. It is only the ones too big to carry away that they did not take; those they just munched on right on the spot.

Scott

[dcarch]

If they sell edible green paint, or green paint that can be washed away, it would be nice.

In areas where can be seen by passerby, I plant all green toms.


dcarch

[Polar_Lace]

Maybe you can hang this picture there:

[mountain homestead]

this is only from personal experience, PEOPLE SUCK!! 8 out of 10 given the oppurtunity SUCK! IMHO

[bizzarbazzar]

uaw249,

[Earl]

You could put up a sign out by the road, something like:

If you're the rotten scoundrel who stole my maters, you owe me 20 Bucks! If you're a raccoon, then I apologize, for shooting you, thinking you were human the next time you enter my property.

[matermama]

actually all 's the sign has to say is " Not Organic" and "Genetically Enginered " , people in Ca are pretty picky with their food. I should now i am from Palo Alto. 8)

[bugsy]

I used to be at a coop garden and my mistake was that I let people try some of my cherry tomatoes while I was there. These people wouldn't stop picking and finally I had to shove them off. Somehow I still had a tomato harvest that year but just.

Advice for people with unfenced or coop gardens: don't grow any fruit. I used to see coop gardeners completely stripping the raspberry bushes of this poor woman who didn't know what was happening. Someone also had their watermelons stolen. I grew some beans and squash and nobody stole those.

-- oh and if you have extra good looking tomatoes on the plants, you could inject an emetic into them. just a thought.

[montanamato]

You city dwellers are too kind...I don't think I could even be nice enough to post a sign....I would probably do something sick and revengeful ....like spray the next ripening tom with dog manure water...Heck, I have butchered chickens for just putting a whole in a tomato.

My mom had it happen when she was gone one afternoon. She has part of her tomatoes growing next to the house, in sight where a lot of people walk by. They took 14 Yates and County Agents...she always counts how many tomatoes each plant is setting for my records....They must have brought a grocery bag to lug them home...

Jeanne

[amideutch]

Vince, Sorry about your loss. Hopefully it was an isolated incident. It's a shame we have to do things to prevent this kind of behavior.
A couple things that come to mind if the sign thing doesn't work is;
1. Get one of those fake video cams and put it in you patch on a pole with a piece of cable attached to it going into the ground.
2. Find a firm that does alarm installation work and ask them if they have any old PIR's (passive infrared detector) that are broken and do the same as with the fake video cam.
3. If you want to get creative you can get a PIR with a narrow beam (long distance) and mount it so it monitors your garden boundry and hook it up to a audio device (buzzer, siren etc) located in the yard or your house depending if you want to catch them or deter them. Not as expensive as you think.
4. And when all else fails, the old standby (Barbed Wire).

Good luck with your problem and my brother lives down the road from you, Diamond Bar. Ami

[GreenThumbGal_07]

Someone just took my 2nd ripe Campbell 1327 (it was huge, at least 13 oz). I have only one tiny one left on that whole plant.

The plant was in a garage area where I couldn't keep an eye on it when looking out of my window, so the theft went undetected.

Putting up the sign didn't help at all.

I probably won't be growing tomatoes here next year since I'm thinking of relocating.

People. Sigh.

GTG

[daylilydude]

I don't mean anything by this but could it be a family member playing a joke . Please don't get angry with me but it could happen. . We are always quick to say an outsider did it BUTTTT it could be an inside job and they are sitting there getting a kick out of it. I know this because i too have done such things 8)

[Vince]

Woops,

It turns out the thieves were not human. On an early girl plant I have another tomato just dissapeared. Apon close inspection of the area I saw tiny traces of red skin and a little pulp. At this point I thought maybe I was wrong about the human thieves. Well I wasn't sure but last night when I got home from work about 7pm I picked 3 tomatoes, which were ripe(they actually could have used 2 more days on the vine) off the heatwave that was initially attacked, just to make sure I could make some salsa today. There was one more large tomato on the plant that was about half blush so I couldn't bring myself to pick it. This morning the same tomato was half eaten hanging from the plant. So after I saw this I was pretty sure the initial attack was from the same animal, but he happened not to leave a trace. (so I took the sighn down). I have skunks, racoons and possums congregating by my mulch pile every single night, but they never have come after the toms like this before. I considered trap and release of the culprit, but I don't want to catch a skunk and have to trasport him away(I did this once when I was about 16 years old, and it wasn't pretty). So as soon as I am done writing this I'm going to Home Depot to buy some chicken wire to cover the plants that have ripening fruits. I guess I should have more faith in my fellow man.

Vince