Classy. Maybe you'll set a new trend.

Karen

Great idea, lois. Hurray to stockings!
I have been using them to wrap fruits and seed heads for years. I also cut them up in stips to use as ties.
:-) Old T-shirts too. Very handy.

Will the tomatoe get ripe through the stocking? Great idea; I've heard of it being cut into strips to use for ties.

I use stocking strips as plant ties, too. Back when my main flush of roses came at the same time as the jap beetles, I would also 'bag' a developing rose bud with a nylon pouch and tie it with a twistie tie. The nylon allowed the rose bud to expand, and I would cut the rose as soon as it was 1/3 open to enjoy in the house. In the last few years, the roses have finished their main blooming by the time the blasted beetles get here. So back to tomatoes: I figured if roses can develop normally inside a stocking, why not tomatoes?

Update: Uh-oh, raccoons have discovered my garden. It might have been one of these guys and not the birds who bit into my almost-ripe tomato. I will have to take measures.

{{gwi:419487}}

About the ripening inside the stocking question: I wasn't sure until I looked last night. They do ripen, but it looks like they ripen a little more slowly than the ones that are out in the blazing sun.

What measures do you use for raccoons? I have one that has been raiding my bird feeders so I have been bringing them inside at night.

Haven't seen any damage in the garden yet but my tomatoes are still quite small.

I've done something similar. If I want to trellis small melons I make pantyhose bras for them! Little hammocks. Works great - but I don't really wear pantyhose anymore and neither does anyone I know, so they are hard to come by!!

Measures = neighbor's live trap (and maybe neighbor's help in disposal if I bribe with a pie or something). Neighbor has a large garden of their own, so they might have a vested interest in ridding the area of varmints.

GGG: The large pot behind the raccoon in the picture holds some minnasota midget cantaloupe, so I might be creating some nylon brassieres too.

I wished I'd seen this years ago when my dear MIL was alive. She always had the most beautiful vegetable garden and the last 5 yrs. she battled with squirrels and rabbits. She would stand at the kichen or dining room window and watch the darn squirrels stand on their hind legs and reach up and pull her biggest and ripest tomato and eat it. A neighbor loaned my FIL a trap, Dad would end up catching 17 squirrels in that trap over a week's time(didn't kill or injure the squirrel). He catch them and drive 2 miles away and let them lose, and he swore they beat him home! This stocking idea would be something she would think of and use.