What critter is knocking my tomatoes off the vine and eating

We have had unusually warm dry weather this past 2 months. Probably nocturnal critter. Someone suggested squirrels looking for water/moisture.

Squirrels can indeed be pesky little creatures, and they love to raid my tomato patch. I've witnessed them carrying off my Sweet 100's right off the vine. Mostly they have been around in the early morning hours. I guess I haven't done much to discourage them, I've got plenty of tomatoes out there anyway, but they are sometimes fun to watch.

Al

We have lots of squirrels around. It must be them. I had no idea they were tomato eaters.

I have chipmunks and rabbits taking one bite out of tomatoes, cucumbers and squash that they can reach, but the squirrels take the tomatoes, sit on the top of the garden fence railing and leave the half-eaten remains there. Cheeky critters, they.

In addition to those crietters mentioned above I can add raccoons, skunks and deer and woodchucks ( ground hogs to some of you), and all from personal experience.

I've never seen squiirels do it, at least in my area.

The above referring to tomatoes only, which was the question.

Lycodad, nice to see Hornell mentioned since I graduated from Cornell, and remember it, but not as well, I mean Hornell,. as when I was in the Ithaca area all those many years ago. Good memories.

Carolyn

And, eating ripe tomatoes that are very near the ground or have dropped to the ground - box turtles. They don't pick tomatoes from the plants of course, but they sure love to eat them.

I always make sure the vertically-challenged little guys have some they can get to on my compost pile. They won't quit eating a ripe tomato even when a person is right there watching them - pure turtle enjoyment!

Add possums to the above lists. They will eat anything. Our fence helps keep many critters out. But so far this year we have caught and relocated several raccoons and possums. We're now fighting an armadillo in the yard elsewhere. Can't seem to catch it.

OutsidePlaying, during the day your armadillo is head-first down in a hole it's dug somewhere. My son-in-law once tried to drag one out of such a hole by its tail, but he couldn't get a good grip on it. He got Vise-Grip pliers out of the toolbox in his truck, and clamped 'em on - the critter backed out of the hole and escaped into the woods. Our family has been on the lookout for the armadillo with Gary's pliers ever since! LOL

LOL, Ozark. I have a lot of woods to look in and would have to take my snake gun with me! I'd be more worried about the critters with no legs! Our dog (90+ lb chocolate lab) was trying to retrieve one he found by the barn one night. We laughed so hard.... Even he couldn't get his mouth around it.

Lol, too funny.

The 'dillo is history. DH went outside Friday night after we got home from dinner out. He has a night vision spotting scope. Found the big guy rooting around in the front bed and got him with his 22 magnum. Yay! One of my back beds (newly re-planted and mulched last spring) looks like someone took a roto-tiller to it, so I have a lot of mulch to replace. The yard around that area is full of divots but I'm hoping a good rain will fill in most of those. Now if we can just keep an eye out for his friends and hope they don't find us. Apparently our trap wasn't big enough.

RIP, 'dillo! I get a kick out of watching "possums on the half shell", what weird animals. When I'm hunting from a deer stand in November, armadillos have got my adrenaline pumping many times - one 'dillo rooting around in dry leaves sounds like a whole herd of deer coming. They're not delicate in their movements.

I'm always careful when I have to handle a dead one, though, and I hope your DH was. I wear gloves and try to just carry them by the tip of the tail. In some places, about 4% of armadillos carry leprosy - I think they're the only host other than humans. Not much of a concern really, leprosy is incredibly hard to catch, but no one needs an incurable Biblical disease. Sheesh!

Thanks, Ozark. I knew that. DH put on his gloves and disposed of him by the tail. I don't know if I've ever heard one and I hope I don't!

We have box turtles that love our strawberries and the low-hanging tomatoes, and I don't mind sharing a bit but I do deport them when I find them. Sometimes they have fashioned a nice little hidey-hole in the mulch, just adjacent to their favorite treats. What we did have to eliminate was a groundhog. It didn't get into my garden but it ate my wonderful French hollyhocks that I had finally convinced to grow!

I would come out each morning to find several tomatoes with parts of the tomato eaten. I finally discovered that it was field mice.

I've had squirrels in dry weather biting on my tomatoes, but if I keep the bird bath filled it helps. I need to keep on top of that anyway.

I gave up on large tomatoes because I have a critter that gets them off the vine, takes one bite and leaves them on the ground - did this to most of them. Now I'm growing Super Sweet 100 cherries and there are so many that it doesn't matter how many it takes.