Question
Greetings and THANKS for your time! :-)

We just planted a garden this year and suddenly all the good sized tomatoes that were all still very green were "picked" by something. My husband accused the kids, but I know they did not touch it. There is no sign of anything being disturbed and there was no trace of a tomato left. Funny though that our Roma plants were not touched.
We began to leave our Terrier tied up near the garden all the time and last night he was on the other side of the fence and could not have reached a "critter". Sure enough a Roma was found on the ground as if someone had picked it and then discarded it-none of the other tomato plants have any bigger tomatoes than the size of a quarter, so they are still intact. Do you think this is a racoon? They tend to be brave around here.

Answer
Hi Cynthia

I suppose it could be a raccoon or an opossum, though I have never seen that and I have plenty of both around.  I had a wood rat harvesting tomatillo much like you describe.  Catch rats with cage live traps wrapped in news paper except the ends. Bait with a sliced apple.  If you have skunk around, set the trap up off the ground since skunk rarely attempt a climb.

If it turns out to be raccoon etc, I make and sell deterrent devices.  Info is here.

http://HomeTown.AOL.com/DCJincks/MyHomePage/Business.html

Hope this helps you out a bit.  You can contact me here or at my email given at the info site.

Dan Jincks