What is eating my tomatoes??

We are having problems with tomatoes. Once they start ripening, something is coming and taking chunks out of them. Not insects but something else. Its like they are being bitten by something. Its not kids because there aren't any of those around here. I think it might be raccoons but then again some of the tomatoes are kind of high up and I am wondering if a racoon could get at them. I live backing up to a wooded area but there are houses all around. I have not seen a deer here but I have seen them a mile or so away. Pls advise.

Squirrels do that to my tomatoes all the time. I'm putting bird netting over them this year, but I'm not sure it'll work. They're crafty critters.

Sounds like squirrels to me, and if so, God help you! I usually remove the bitten tomato and leave it on the ground, hoping the easy access will make the varmits stay off the new ones (I think David Hammond had found leaving them on top of his fence did even better.) Other suggestions I've heard are to leave a dish of water out in hopes that they're stealing to get a drink (this has never worked for me,) blood meal around your plants (sometimes works for me,) and coffee grounds as a mulch (never tried it)

What appears to have worked for me is using stakes instead of cages, as they can't climb up to reach them as easily. We'll see if that holds true this year.

I agree that it's likely squirrels. My tomatoes have been okay, but for the third year in a row I've lost all the apples from my apple tree. Each year my apples just disappear, so I thought it had to be humans because what animal would take them from the stem? This was an off year so I didn't lose too many, but last year I lost a lot. I thought it might be kids in the neighborhood until I talked to my mom about her pear trees in Wisconsin. She said she had a bumper crop this year, but that she had to pick them when they're awfully small because otherwise the squirrels get them all. She said that the squirrels bite off the fruit at the stem and take them away. I did always wonder why people were taking the apples when they really weren't ready to pick at all.

I had a bowl of homegrown tomatoes sitting on my kitchen counter and the squirrels ate through the screen window to have their meal! Half eaten tomatoes all down the back porch stairs. They also liked to chew off the hot peppers we tried growing in containers. Didn't take the peppers but ruined most of the crop that way. Nixed that idea this year.

My solution here, with a scope.

Nets will help, but they absolutely positively have to be battened (literally) at the bottom.

Geo

Dusting heavily with bloodmeal and/or powdered chilies (buy in bulk at Korean store) can help, but it needs to be reapplied after every rainfall. Dust not only the plants but the ground around them. The idea is not only to ward the squirrels of with smell but, with the chilies, also to give them a hot foot.

Shiny, noisy whirligigs and wind chimes can sometimes help.

If you can afford some, I've been reading good things about these motion-activated sprinklers (commercial).

Squirrels and rabbits serve as the basis for many Brunswick stews during the colonial days.

or if you have family in Western KY...

Yeah, but some of those families in Western KY had more than a bit of trouble with them squirrel brains, mad squirrel disease!!

Y'awl just be careful of that burgoo!

Geo

I bought something at the hardware store to get rid of critters....Its in a blue bottle with a spray. Its active ingredient is pepper spray. You have to keep reapplying it but it seems to work. I have a lot of near ripe tomatoes now and they're looking good. Next year, no more tomato cages I think just stakes might work. We'll see.

Toria, that stuff really worked on the bunnies who were after my tulips. I'd follow the instructions carefully on how to remove it before taking a bite, though - it's more like the pepper spray that's used as chemical mace than like cayenne.

No garden for me this year (the yard at my new place is filthy with creosote, I'm having the yard dug out and fresh soil brought in next Spring), but in the past, I used a combo of netting and a squirrel feeder that I religiously filled with peanuts to keep them out of the tomatoes and it worked pretty well.

Unfortunately, that did not keep them out of my apples. Can't win 'em all, I guess.

Will the chili powder work on greens as well? I always had trouble keeping squirrels out of the lettuce.

Ursiform—why not net the apples as well? I net my grapes, using a standard bird netting, which keeps out the squirrels, too. If you google "bird netting" you'll get a lot of hits, such as this, which would cover a pretty good-sized apple tree.

Geo

Geo wrote:Ursiform—why not net the apples as well? I net my grapes, using a standard bird netting, which keeps out the squirrels, too.

Geo, when I put in fruit trees here, I most certainly will try that! Right now, I'm still in the planning stages for my beds for next year. The only thing that can currently live in the toxic wasteland that is my backyard are *surprise* dandelions.

My dog is eating my tomatoes! (maybe this should go into the what my damned dog is eating thread...)

He's blind, yet he figured out how to get in - he pulled up the fencing, and when I put in a stake there, he pulled up the stake. He also managed to get the 3 most gorgeous and ripe tomatoes that I was planning to serve to guests for dinner on Tuesday. He trampled my pepper plants, and also ate the one ripe pepper.

I did have squirrels eat a few, whose scent may have spurred him to try to get into the garden.

OK, I'll raise you - just discovered that our chow mix, Fala, is eating our........wait for it...... leeks! The lazy &*%#& lies down on the sidewalk and nibbles at them delicately from a sideways prone position.

Just discovered, no surprise, that the #$@&* rabbits are what's been eating my beet tops - they somehow unwound a length of the chicken wire fence just above where it was buried and have been squeezing through the hole. Fortunately, the beets are far enough along that they don't mind going bald.

We also had (did I mention this already?) what turned out to be a raccoon completely devastate our corn - we got one serving, and the next day returned to find all the remainder de-pantsed like old banana peels, the stripped cobs sticking up like naked middle fingers. I'll be eating C2's offering at the picnic with black revenge in my heart.

I just HATE those 'coons, Mhays! The little buggers *peel* my grapes, individually, leaving the skins there to mock me. After trapping a bunch of them I realized that there were way too many of them, and life was too short. So I put up an electric fence. That's the ONLY successful method to deal with 'coons. Works like a charm, it's easy to do, and cheap. You'll never be able to have any corn w/o one. I'm in mid-town KC, and it's just crawling with those bandits...

Geo

Geo wrote:I'm in mid-town KC, and it's just crawling with those bandits...

They're in "inner city" Chicago, too. There's one particular mutant-looking one crawling around the alley in the back of my house that appears to weigh thirty pounds. I thinking it's feeding pretty well off the vegetable gardens in my neighborhood . . .

So sorry, Geo!

I read somewhere that if you tie off the ears with strapping tape just before they get ripe, the 'coons get frustrated and give up. Not that that helps you for grapes...