It’s inevitable…I will lose a few plants to errant balls, foam noodle battles, rambunctious squirrels, or foraging chipmunks. This pot had two Roma tomato plants, but one was broken off by one of the above. 😦 I am betting on rambunctious squirrels.

Happily for me one of last year’s problems, squirrels biting into ripe tomatoes, is the solution to this year’s broken tomato plant. In summers past, when I found a chewed tomato I often just picked it and let it drop beneath the plant in hopes the squirrels would eat from the easy pickings on the ground and leave my plants alone. This usually didn’t work, but it did deposit numerous seeds into the soil, and now I have sweet little volunteer seedlings growing everywhere. I will plant a few into the big pot and see if they will thrive. Most likely, it will be close to September before I will harvest tomatoes from these vines, but hey, I have plenty of other tomato plants, and I can wait on these babies. Hooray for volunteers!