Re: What's eating my tomatoes?
gardenchat@hort.net
  • Subject: Re: What's eating my tomatoes?
  • From: k* <c*@aol.com>
  • Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 18:19:09 -0400 (EDT)
Could the damage to your tomatoes be tomato hornworms? They will eat the
tomatoes as well as the plant leaves and do a tremendous amount of damage and
are very hard to see being the exact color of a tomato leaf. I am speaking
from sad experience here! Kathy





-----Original Message-----
From: Catharine Carpenter <cathycrc@comcast.net>
To: gardenchat <gardenchat@hort.net>
Sent: Mon, Aug 15, 2011 11:05 am
Subject: Re: [CHAT] What's eating my tomatoes?


While I would not rule out squirrels, I would consider invertebrates.
While I have not bothered to try to definitively identify them, I have
found critters of "squash bug" shape munching on mine. Have taken to
picking mine early and ripening them indoors.
Cathy, west central IL, z5b

On Aug 15, 2011, at 12:36 PM, Aplfgcnys@aol.com wrote:

> Because of uncooperative weather conditions and other situations my
> vegetable garden got off to a very late start this year.  However,
> now that
> my tomatoes have set fruit, something is eating the green tomatoes.
> The vegetable garden is fenced.For several years I lost so much to
> woodchucks, but we did sink fence wire a couple of feet below the
> ground, and the fence is 10 feet high, so we are not having as much
> trouble with the chucks.
>
> I have been able to harvest one batch of beans
> and another is in full flower now.  For the past three years they
> had been
> eaten to the ground at that point.  Those things haven't been eaten,
> but
> something is taking the green tomatoes when they get about two or
> three
> inches across.
>
> First, I would find a half-eaten one on the ground beside
> the plant.  That was infuriating.  Now, as more fruits are
> developing, I am
> finding that ones still on  the plant have bites taken out of them.
> Really
> now!  Usually not too much of the fruit is eaten - just enough to
> spoil it.
>
> What is doing this?  I believe it is chipmunks, which are small
> enough to
> get through the gap at the gate, and who have holes all over the
> place,
> even in the garden.  We are totally overrun with them.
>
> I have tried using Park's "Shake Away" which is fox urine and said to
> deter small pests, but it doesn't seem to work.  I think they just
> don't
> know what a fox is.
> Any ideas about how to control them?  Or what else could be getting
> at my tomatoes?
> Auralie
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the
> message text UNSUBSCRIBE GARDENCHAT

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE GARDENCHAT

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE GARDENCHAT
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index