Andi,

I blamed the deer for my missing and gnawed tomatoes my first year. Put up a deer fence and had the same problem the following year.

I have a ton of squirrels. They don't touch my tomatoes but wreck havoc with my bird feeders (I have the ones with the squirrel cages too).

Finally figured out the culprit in my tomato patch. Rats. I found my first gnawed tomato today, so the rat bait went out. It's war!

Any hints for keeping raccoons out of the swimming pool? I have one that bathes nightly in my spa, leaving a muddy mess.

Todd, good choices. You'll need to dead-head the dianthus from time to time, but you'll get lots of color. Your pansies lasted a long time. I switch mine out of my beds about April.