Critters in Tomato Garden

[annaschrock]

HELP!!!!!!! Anybody have problems with critters eating their tomatoes???? Plants look great and very promising,but just as the tomatoes are about to ripen,they dissapear.Usually there's only a few red remains layin about where the tomato was.Suspicious that it could be squirrels or something small???? Anyone have any remedies,please....I want some tomatoes to harvest!!!!

[shoelessryan]

no remedies, but have you noticed upper leaves being chewed off? you might have tomato hornworms they are easy to pick off usually about the size of a finger!!! they move across the tops of the plants fairly fast so i try to check often, the fish love the snack!

[shoelessryan]

hey just thought of another problem, i have two large dogs so no unwelcome critters in my yard. but you may have a racoon problem, or poss. deer, both like to take a bite out of each fruit to taste which one tastes the best!!

[puttgirl]

Around here, the big eaters are the groundhogs!

I live within city limits, though, so don't have many big critters here, so I suspect squirrels pick at mine sometimes.
I'll find buckeyes and walnuts in the strangest places, and neither tree is on my property.

[Eccentric Follies]

Squirrels. They seem to be the worst when it comes to snagging your tomatoes right before you'd pick them. Little devils even chewed on a few through the chicken wire we put up. Tried keeping water in the yard, but that didn't seem to help this year. We're over-run with squirrels this summer, after a developer took down a little over an acre of woods. So the usual remedies didn't really help at all. Hope i'm not jinxing myself, but the tomato thieving seems to have slowed down, if not stopped, now that the acorns are getting to be a big enough size for them.

The DH is planning on building a modular, walk-in cage for the tomatos next year. Guess he's tired of me raging around the house about getting a sack of feed corn and a good air rifle. :eek: :D [living in town, there is no discharging of "real" firearms]

Good luck. It is frustrating, isn't it? Go out to get that tomato you've been watching ripen, to find it's totally disappeared.

[lumina]

When I was in the city, it was rats & tree squirrels - though it wasn't that bad.
Here in the country now, it's ground squirrels. They have wiped me OUT of tomatoes. :( :(

[happygardener]

I trap them (squirrels) in a Havahart cage.I live in town so that eliminates shooting them for supper. DH takes them to the farm and releases them. So far I have trapped 11. Mostly dumb young ones. I had tomatoes with one bite out of them. It makes you so mad. Now they are not coming into garden. Still a few around though. I'm eating tomatoes. Just got first toms named Carbon. Explosive taste. Wow! Will grow these again.

[Eccentric Follies]

Yup, jinxed myself. :rolleyes:

DH pulled into the driveway and saw movement in one of the 'mater cages. He threw the truck into park and went busting over there. Squirrel saw him coming and tried to scramble out of the cage. Apparently the squirrel had a difficult time climbing the plastic chicken fence, as the DH almost [almost!] grabbed it's tail. DH swears he felt the fur. Squirrel ran up a cedar tree, that we've limbed about 10ft up . DH looked around for something to fling at the squirrel, found a dog toy. He flung it and knocked that squirrel off the tree trunk. Squirrel recovered and ran back up the tree. DH tries to shake the squirrel out of the tree, cussing it the whole time. Squirrel finally made it's escape and made it to it's nest. But the DH sure put the fear into that squirrel. At least for a day or two.

Of course the whole time, that little voice in the back of his head was telling him to [I]not catch the squirrel. What was he gonna do with a buzzsaw that has teeth and claws?

Where's a video camera when you need one?

No wonder the neighbors leave us alone! LOL!!!!!!