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Thank you for the lovely compliments about my kids and all! We all love those. :-)

I read your post about the prairie dogs and figured Granny or someone would have answers for you. That is about the only garden-eating varmint that we don’t have around here I suppose. I’ve heard, read and watched a lot of gardening shows addressing those kinds of things but never had to deal with ‘em.

I tell ya one thing I did last summer that sounds like your potted tomato. And since you’ve got so much space you might try it. It has nothing to do with prairie dogs but it might help.

See, the longest amount of sun in this yard is smack in the middle of the front yard. We’re borrowing this house and caretaking for my mother right now so can’t exactly dig up the front yard for a garden. I got some large empty plastic feed tubs from the feed store here and put ‘em in the front yard so my things would get maximum sun. I knew I could make the grass grow back for mom when we move out so wasn’t worried about that. So, I had a gathering of big plastic tubs in the front yard with tomatoes, squash and cucumbers in ‘em.

I put them out late enough that I didn’t have to worry about freezing and they would have been too heavy for me to move anyway. But, my key thing was that I wanted tomatoes ALL summer and by July it’s too hot here and the plants fizzle from the heat - expecially in a container. Being in a rural town and not worrying about aesthetics anyway I put bales of hay around my pots to insulate them from the summer heat and help the 2 large clay pots from drying out so bad. I had some stakes on my tomato plants and arranged the whole shootin’ match so I could throw a mesh screen over them in the middle of the day to protect from sunburn. It all worked out very well, I kept my stuff producing until winter.

As a matter of fact, the squash and cukes quit producing but I kept the tomatoes going through several of the first freezes we had. To do that, I kept jugs of water in the pots all the time to absorb heat during the day. Then, when I knew we were expecting freezing weather I went out just before dark and put my protection up. I had a couple of *very* large pieces of cardboard that I put between the pots and the hay bales on the north and west side to act as a windbreak. Then I threw heavy fabric over the top of the cardbord and tomato stakes to drape all the way past the hay bales. I’d tuck the fabric between the bales and the pots and then tie it down.

First coupla times I covered it for a freeze the neighbors kinda made fun of me. By December the neighbor lady commented one day that she sure wished she had some fresh ripe tomatoes. LOL... I just pointed out that you had to protect the plants from those occasional freezes when you had them.

Okay, I don’t know if you can do that in your yard or not. But, it seems like maybe the prairie dogs wouldn’t go through the big plastic pots. And I got them free when I saw them lying out back of the feed store and asked what they were doing with them.