Question: How do I keep squirrels from eating my tomatoes?

Answer: This really is a wildlife question, and can get into Game Commission regulations, ethics, and all sorts of other knotty matters. (I once was chastised for recommending cayenne pepper to discourage squirrels because it irritates the squirrels or makes them violently sneeze or something like that.)

So, I will ignore all those avenues for the moment and instead invoke what the British, in a fit of nomenclatural banality, call the soft fruit cage.

This is basically an enclosure large enough to accommodate both mature plants - be they raspberries, corn, dwarf fruit trees, tomatoes - and a gardener. Yes, it's an elaborate proposition. If properly constructed, it works.

The typical British soft fruit cage is temporary - that is, intended to be set up and disassembled repeatedly, both from year to year and from early crop to late crop during the gardening season. They are essentially frames of metal or PVC tubing with plastic mesh stretched over them. The size of the mesh depends on the size of the critters you seek to exclude; berries attract birds, which can get through holes a squirrel cannot.

I constructed such a permanent cage with half-inch-diameter PVC pipe, which is flexible, providing advantages. With a right-angle joint, I connected two, 10-foot pieces, then placed the free ends about 7 feet apart, so that a gothic arch is formed. Because my cage is in a permanent location, the PVC ends are attached to a 2-by-8; there are seven such arches in my configuration, spaced 2 feet apart. For stability, at least two cross braces are needed, one at or near the top, fastened very tightly with wire (for permanence, drill holes for the wire). The other is along one side of the arches, at an angle from a bottom corner up to the top, wherever that runs; this brace, also securely fastened, creates triangular stability. This whole structure is draped with mesh (secured with zip-ties, since it's permanent). One end is loose (secured with clothespins) so that I can enter and tend the plants. By using 10-foot lengths, I can stand in the center with no problem.

To do the same but for temporary use, get iron stakes less than a half-inch in diameter; pound them into the ground in a grid, each where the PVC will meet the ground, leaving 6 to 8 inches of the stake above ground. Slip the PVC over the stakes, then add the cross bracing. This can all be removed at the end of the season.

A friend of mine maintains a fine garden in West Philadelphia, where raccoons, possums and others join the marauding squirrels. With lumber, he has built a very large walk-in cage for peas and other crops. It certainly works.

The point is that there are a variety of configurations and improvisations that can be employed. Hoop houses - typically using plastic sheeting and intended to extend the growing system - can be adapted with mesh, for instance.

Use an Internet search engine and enter "soft fruit cage" or simply "fruit cage" to see what the Brits are making.

But wait, you say, I have neither room nor intention for something so elaborate - I just have some tomato plants the squirrels are attacking.

So let's be cagily creative. Go to a fireplace store; buy a couple of free-standing convex fireplace screens and place them around a vulnerable fruiting plant, one to two feet apart. Use chicken wire or the like between the two fireplace screens to complete the cage. (Fire screening is so fine that by itself it would reduce sunlight and obstruct pollinating insects.) Not tall enough? Place it on a course or two of concrete blocks. Once you get into the cage mentality, you, and your friends, can come up with plenty of other permutations. Just be sure that the cage is either large enough to get into with the plants or easy enough to open/remove; that the mesh is strong enough and has the right size holes; and that there are no vulnerable spots for the critters to sneak in – especially at the ground. And never forget to close it after picking fruit or weeding or whatever.

Voila, no need for squirrel stew recipes.

- Michael Martin Mills

Send questions to Michael Martin Mills, The Inquirer, Box 41705, Philadelphia, Pa. 19101 or gardenqanda@earthlink.net. Please include locale. Read his recent work at http://go.philly.

com/michaelmartinmills.