Something eating tomatoes

Getbrg · Joined: 14 Apr 2003 Posts: 18 Location: Witchita Falls,TX

Nancy Bell had an earlier post about insects eating tomatoes, but I don't think what I have are insects. No foliage has been damaged at all, I have found no hornworms regardless of the time of day or night I go to look.
The tomatoes have small bites in them, green and turning red ones, and some are actually eaten almost the entire way. Whatever it is, I don;t see any hope in having any tomatoes left after the next few days because there are always 3 or 4 more partially eaten every day when I get home from work. I have 3 plants, and one day I had to throw out 23 tomatoes. I still have a bunch left that are all green. Can I bring them in thouse and hope they turn red???? I don;t see any other solution, I've tried everything..wire mesh screens, mousetraps, you name it. None have worked.

Tony M · Joined: 31 Mar 2003 Posts: 1088 Location: McKinney,TEXAS

Most likely you have mice, rats, squirrels or all of them. You can pick tomatoes when they are whitish pink and bring them into the house to ripen. My cats spend a lot of time in the garden so I haven't experienced this problem. Do you have bird feeders in the area? They attract rodents.
Tony M

dragonfly · Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2005 7:53 pm Post subject:

Something else that will eat tomatoes are grasshoppers. If you have a grasshopper problem, be on the lookout for this. They will eat them green, red, or in between.

JimBleck · Joined: 13 Aug 2004 Posts: 14 Location: League City,TEXAS

The birds eat holes in my tomatoes as soon as they start to turn red. They don't usually bother them until there is a red spot on them. Last year I put bird netting over the plants and that helped.

Getbrg · Joined: 14 Apr 2003 Posts: 18 Location: Witchita Falls,TX

Thanks for the help everyone. I've picked all the tomatoes that were left and will now just hope that they turn red in the house. It's just discouraging ya know, this was the best year I've had, have been completely organic for almost 10 years, and it really shows in the crop production, then there are critters to deal with. Oh well!!! Thanks again!!!

tommyr · Joined: 10 Jan 2005 Posts: 53 Location: Breckenridge,TEXAS

If there are Mockingbirds in the area, they are probably the culprits. In my garden if there were no red ones later in the season when they had been eating them for a while, they would peck the green ones. Rats are also a possibility.