Prime Suspect

I was a bit dismayed to return from our 3 week vacation and go to the garden to find it had been pillaged. The promising zucchini plants: empty. The budding lettuce: gone. The peppers: fruitless. The weeds: flourishing. I was expecting something to be amiss when I received an email while we were in Ohio that people's garden plots we beginning to be thinned by someone or something without the owner's permission.

Since then I've happened on a group of unsuspecting children admiring maybe a little too much the bounty from the little plots. (They were admiring the taste of carrots and tomatoes of gardens the told me they "had permission" to savor). I would like to take their word for it, I really would. But I'm doubtful.

So, it was time to take some action on the one plant that I seem to have left that promised any kind of production. The tomatoes I've been nursing along since May 14th. They are finally bountiful, but green. There are 2 in the garden plot, and they seem to be doing ok, and 4 outside my front door. In an attempt to keep them coming along I moved them to our back patio for easier watering and more observation.
I'm afraid it's not a gang of kids I have to be worried about.
Nope, the tomatoes are still getting eaten before their prime. And the prime suspect:
You guessed it.