Remember that tomato plant?

So, remember in those first pictures of the SFG I posted there was a tomato plant in the back of the first box. I went down there a few days after planting it and the whole stem was shorn off and there was slime everywhere.

Darn slug.

I tore it out and planted something else in its place.

I also had a husky red bush in the front walk. It was getting a bit brown, so I moved it to the back deck where it promplty thoroughly died. I cut it off at the base with the thought of dumping the soil later. Later never came and the plant sprouted anew. Amazing!

Three weeks ago, some rotten animal...slime included, cut off the tops of both stems fresh with flowers. I was incensed. I was outraged. What could it have been? Yes, there was slime, but this is a raised deck? Squirrel? Bird? Yes, maybe, but why didn't they bother the plant while it was out front?

I had given up. Forgotten about the whole thing, when this morning while I was drinking my coffee, watching sportscenter and praying Tebow would catch the flu today, I saw a shaddow moving over the tomato plant. I saw those giant masticating jaws lower themselves down on what was left of the fledgling tomato plant and chew...chew..chew, leaving a trail of slime as it went.

Blasted DOG!!!

It was my dog all along. That rotten slime drooling great dane, picking on something less than the size of his idiot head. Rotten dog. No wonder the plant survived in the front yard just fine.
The point of all this....I have four tomatoes planned to go in the back yard next year. I suppose I'll have to enclose the entire box in chicken wire, huh?