Personally, I would never use mothballs on or near soil in which we are raising any sort of edible crop.

Mothballs are a registered pesticide and should be used according to the pesticide label instructions found on the container. I haven't bought mothballs in a long time, but I am pretty sure that the instructions for mothballs do not recommend outdoor use of any sort.

Mothballs generally have one of two active ingredients: dichlorobenzene or naphthalene. Some products containing naphthalene may be registered in some states as an outdoor mammal repellent, but that still doesn't mean it is a good idea to use them around your tomatoes or any other edible crop.

Naphthalene is only marginally effective when used as a repellent. Here where we live in a very rural part of Oklahoma with abundant wildlife, some people put mothballs around their chicken coops to repel snakes, but I can't tell that they have fewer snakes than we have around our chicken and guinea housing.

We have a lot of raccoons here, and about the only ways we have found to keep them out of the garden is either by trapping them in live traps and releasing them elsewhere--far, far away from anyone who is growing a crop, OR by surrounding the garden with electric fencing, which probably isn't an option for you.

There are some commercial critter repellents available--like Critter Ridder--and some of them are based on predator urine. I haven't tried any of them, but maybe someone else here has.

Some bird seed mixtures are treated with hot pepper to keep the squirrels out of the bird seed, and it is said to work, so maybe spraying your tomato plants with a pepper spray (you can buy commercial ones from organic suppliers or make your own) might help with the squirrels, but I don't know if it would have any effect on the racoons.

One option is to pick the tomatoes when they are just beginning to color up, and let them finish ripening on the counter. It isn't ideal, but it beats losing the ripe tomatoes to the wildlife.

Dawn

One option would be to surround the tomatoes with a cage or netting small enough that the varmints cant reach through. Of course that makes it harder for you to harvest the tomatoes yourself, but consider this idea...

Surround the tomato cages with a 2nd larger cage, such that when you manually rotate it a few inches you can reach in and and harvest and then rotate it back to thwart the varmints.

Definitely skip the moth balls.
I would recommend fencing/netting. A physical barrier is the only reliable method.

seahorse

{{gwi:1388590}}

Gotta go with Dawn's last suggestion - picking them before the vermin. Not ideal, but beats the alternative.

I had good luck with predator, cougar, poop from the zoo. Cut open some soda cans, dropped some in, place one in each corner of the bed and voila, it worked for me.

Only thing is that you have to re-apply once a month or so. And that crap ain't cheap. $25 for 4 lbs.

Bill