Mystery of the Disappearing Green Tomatoes

My patio bush tomato was loaded down with some 6-8 medium large green tomatoes, and I was just waiting to reel them in. I could already taste those lightly salted tomato slices. Then one day as I waited for them to turn red, I noticed that 1/2 of one of them was missing, having apparently been scarfed up by some mysterious creature - and trust me there are many strange creatures around here. Over the next week or so, the tomatoes disappeared, slowly, one at a time. Now the tomato bush is completely bare!

BTW, the bush tomato is in a very large patio planter with 3 grape tomatoes. Strangely enough, the tomato theif has never touched any of the grape tomatoes but has eaten every single one of the regular size tomatoes. Any ideas as to what sort of creature is doing this and how to prevent it?

Below is a picture a 1/2 eaten green tomato left on the ground by the plant.

Here is a picture of the bush with some partially eaten tomatoes still attached. Unlike most pests, this one finished off the partially eaten fruit on a subsequent trip. (Don't you just hate it when they eat part of one fruit/leaf/flower and then just start on another?)

The copperhead did it!

I thought of that! He was my 1st suspect.

SCUT,
May i suggest a forensic vetrinary odentologist??? hehehe

First guess is racoon. Have you tried a burglar alarm??

Regards;
bluelytes

LOLOLOL mine too but for some odd reason a masked bandit is as well.

Looks like two of us had that premonition.

This message was edited Jun 6, 2006 11:38 PM

ROTFLOL!

You mean after all of the dog food and left overs I've tossed over the fence to Heidi, she's repaying me by eating my tomatoes?!

Burglar alarm? OUT-SIDE?! Do you have any idea what my neighbors would do to me? Are you trying to get me run out of town? I live in one of those neighborhoods where my neighbor's house appears to be in my yard.

Maybe the scarecrow motion activated water thingy? Water them and keep the pests away all at the same time.

I just can't BELIEVE that Heidi is eating my tomatoes! I thought we were buds. That is SO rude of her.

SCUT,
Ummm, coons ENJOY water. LOL

Regards;
bluelytes

Great. I'm picturing the raccoon walking back and forth in front of the sensor while munching on tomatoes, flooding the yard, and driving the water bill through the roof!

What does the raccoon have against grape tomatoes?

It might not be the case at your place, but at our house, I blame the squirrels. The are the ones that seem to like the large tomatoes when still green at my house for some reason. I know this only because I have caught them in the act a few times...

Hubby and I came home from work one day, and as the pick-up pulled in the drive, I noticed something green "hovering" by one of the rocks in my garden wall. The "hovering" item was dropped by what I then saw was a squirrel hopping away. When I went to investigate, the green item was half of a large tomato. I later found another half a tomato hung way up on the neighbor's fence. I've seen the squirrels sometimes eat little tomatoes, but they seemed to like them when they were red (at least the ones I caught them with were red ones), and since there are many more of those, I usually had to catch them in the act to know they were nabbing the little ones.

If I remember correctly, I might've also caught a squirrel eating a pepper or two when the suirrel population was larger. We don't seem to have as many squirrels this year... That may be in part due to our active chipmunks, or alternatively our hawks and owls - our neighborhood has a good population of both.

My suggestion is a nice free-standing cage around the tomatoes. We made some with heavy wire mesh, mostly to hold the plants up, but they seemed to deter the squirrels as well.

squirrels eat ours, but only certain varieties.

Hmm. I have LOTS of squirrels, and they are the cutest little antagonists ever. Every spring my little dwarf peach tree is loaded with fruit, and they eat every single peach while it is only about 1.5"D and very green. Sounds like a match!

Now what is the solution? I need a fence around my fence around my fence - a force field, maybe. Or a big, mean dog. My luck the dog would dig up the plants to make a cool spot to sleep.

SCUT,
A small leg trap, and a large kitchen knife are my solutions for you. Or you could leave the squirrel in the leg trap, and let the copperhead do your dirty work for you!! lol

Best;
bluelytes

blue, that's a good circle of life solution.

sorry, all, that I've been absent for a while - had a bit of personal tragedy to attend to but am back now. you know, ..."into each life...rain must fall".

So, in the mean time, I found out "who" the culprit was - you know, "who" ate ALL of my green tomatoes before they even had a chance to ripen.

Rat(s)! I SAW one scurry away one night when I went out there to walk the dog. I know, I know, how disgusting! Well, it seems a few of the little vermin were attracted to all that free food at the all -you-can-eat, bird feeder buffet. Before I realized it, they had amassed a nice little family out there. Thankfully, I've never seen any indication of them inside, but outside was a different matter... Once I realized they were out there, I tried trapping them, but wasn't making much of a dent on the population...until the snakes moved in... Oh well, cycle of life. Just wanted to put an end to the mystery of the green tomatoe bandit.

SCUT,
So sorry to hear of your "tragedy", I hope you are WELL, and got things worked out. And I am sure I speak FOR ALL OF DG, in that we are VERY HAPPY you are BACK!!! hooray!!

See, ya chased off Mr/Mrs copperhead, and ya get RATS!! lol

Best;
bluelytes

Thanks, blue, from the bottom of my heart!

My grandmother died. Despite her advancing age, it was unexpected. I hated to just drop out of "sight" and considered adding a post to my threads to let you "guys" know "where" I'd gone. But I decided not to because I did not want to visit my personal grief upon all of you.

I am feeling much, much better now. Just needed some time off to deal with it. I will miss her but know that she/we were lucky in that she remained on her feet, active, living alone but near family, driving her car, and hoeing her garden 'til the end, and that's rare. Heck, by the time I got up most mornings she'd already tended an acre or so.

About that copperhead, I haven't seen him around - and I've been looking! But I suspect that he is part of the reason for the severe decrease in rat sightings and activity out there! Seems the rats came to feast on the bird seed, and then the snakes came to dine on the rats. It's that cycle of life again - all works out eventually.

Thanks again for the very kind words!

Welcome back, Scutler. I've been worried about your absence. I'm sorry that life has been dealing you some sadness...and I hope you are healing well.

Funny how we never think of rats, and yet we all probably have them. I know it is one of the secrets of The Woodlands - where I live. Given a chance, they get into your attic and do all manner of damage - intercoms, TV cables, security systems. They have eaten holes through the screens in my screened-in pool area and chewed the plastic surrounding sprinkler heads down to nothing. We have had to put wire cages made of hardware cloth over many of them. Twice my DH has had problems with his beloved Corvette, and twice it was caused by rats chewing through cables. The mechanics even found a nest inside the engine area. We took down our bird feeders probably 3 years ago when we started to have every kind of varmint there is. We keep an electronic zapper in the garage, and traps in the attics. We have snakes in our garden now, and although I think our lizards must be part of their diet, I am hoping they are doing a number on the rats too! Disgusting - yes. But a fact of life.

SCUT,
YMW! I am very sorry for your loss!! :( Its WONDERFUL to have you back. And DONT WORRY about US here, you do what you NEED TO DO for YOU and yours. I have BIG absorbent shoulders, lol. We are here for you whenEVER you NEED or want us!! :)

Best;
bluelytes

thanks, CJ, sorry to worry you, but nice to be missed. : )
I didn't want to spoil everybodies happy mood with my bad news - and I need some down time to reflect...but I'm feeling much, much better now.

Yes, it's even hard to say that you have rats. We always seem to associate them with trash and filth and dirty alleys. I guess the truth is they are pretty much everywhere, lurking nearby, just waiting for us to hang out that dinner bell, eh, I mean bird feeder.

So far I haven't seen any evidence of them inside the house anywhere. The dog's food is out all day and there is never any evidence of them getting in that, for instance. But I guess with all of the bird seed readily available outside, they don't need to come inside. They have started making tunnels in the ground.

Recently, I bought the rat Zapper. So far, no luck getting them to try it out. The instructions indicated that they are less willing to venture into such contraptions right away than mice are. Mine is outside with plastic over it as indicated in instructions. A few days ago a heavy rain tripped it (from below); when I returned home the food was gone. Seems like rats are pretty savvy - they took the bait after the thing was tripped. Makes me think that they can somehow detect the electromagnetic field, perhaps by sound/vibration. Seems like he knew when it was "off".

Thanks, again for the kind words. Nice to be back among friends.

SCUT,
"..inside the house..." YET. What are you baiting with?? I find that peanut butter works the BEST.

Best;
bluelytes

The zapper came with dog food, said that works well. So far I've only used the dog food and some peanuts. But I have a nice jar of peanut butter that I keep just for them; that's what I use on the trap - works well. I'll have to try it in the zapper. With the trap I learned to put a tiny dab BELOW the little metal thing as well as on it. That pretty much eliminates the possibility of one eating the PB without setting off the trap.

SCUT,
I was caretaking for this property one time, and I had a lot of mice in the house, (47 mice in 24hrs). I emptied a trap, baited with PB, put it back on the closet shelf, and by the time I got three steps into the hall, it had gone off.


Best;
bluelytes

Yes, my condolences scutler.

So it was rats, huh?

I guessed squirrels, so I guess I was close if you consider that squirrels are large rodents with fuzzy tails. Hee. (I think both squirrels and rats might be considered rodents if I remember my college Biology correctly.)