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+--- Thread: Green tomatoes disappearing (/showthread.php?tid=8290)
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Green tomatoes disappearing - Dinamight - 01-03-2011
So, I figured out how to grow tomatoes in pots, and to control fruit flies with methyleugenol but now I have another problem. My green tomatoes are being picked off one by one.
Is it rats? Again, slugs? Can a slug consume a whole tomato and not leave a single trace?
Maybe I need to give up gardening all together, it seems to be a constant battle of wits here.
RE: Green tomatoes disappearing - hooligal - 01-03-2011
Do you have any feral chickens around? My hens and ducks love green tomatoes. I temporarily "won" by placing a 3' tall chicken wire hoop around my tomato plants.. which they summarily scratched under & tipped over. Little stinkers! Now the hoops are secured in the ground with old tent stakes. So far so good.
* I'd rather fail at happiness than succeed at misery *
RE: Green tomatoes disappearing - Dinamight - 01-03-2011
No, thank goodness, we have no chickens or roosters in the area. But it's almost as if the tomatoes have been picked. Not likely to be the case by 2 legged creatures as the fruit was not ready to eat, and not very big. We do get rats around here so I'm thinking rats but I just don't know. What a let down.
RE: Green tomatoes disappearing - Tolleys - 01-04-2011
Since her tomato plants are so close to the street, my friend thought that street walkers were stealing her tomatoes. However, one day she saw the culprit! Yes,it was a rat!
Susan
RE: Green tomatoes disappearing - robguz - 01-04-2011
African snails? It's amazing how much they can devour in a short time.
RE: Green tomatoes disappearing - csgray - 01-04-2011
I had a dog that would delicately pick strawberries, blueberries, cherry tomatoes, and grapes from our garden. She only went for the ripe ones though. My bet is on rats if they are disappearing at night.
Carol
RE: Green tomatoes disappearing - Dinamight - 01-05-2011
Well, I'm pretty sure it's rats as we have recently seen evidence in our garage, so we'll have to deal with it. I'll post again when I do get to the bottom of this!
Thanks to all for your replies!
---------------------------------
I'm editing too add an update to this post - we got 3 rats last night in the zapper. Two before going to bed and another one during the night sometime. We'll keep putting it out until the zapper stays empty all night - there must be a huge colony of them around.
RE: Green tomatoes disappearing - Rene Siracusa - 01-06-2011
Don't assume that because the tomatoes are still green they are not edible. When I was a kid in upstate New York, at the end of the season, when we new that the tomatoes would not ripen before the first frost, we would pick them and prepare them in either of 2 ways: pickle them or slice/bread/fry. Even without a freeze here, if your plants are too heavy with fruit, you can pick some green and use them as above. That will take the weight off the branches and allow the plant to divert its energy to the remaining tomatoes.
RE: Green tomatoes disappearing - Rene Siracusa - 01-06-2011
kala mai: "knew" - not "new".
RE: Green tomatoes disappearing - csgray - 01-06-2011
My mom makes green tomato relish and killer chutneys with her end of season tomatoes.
She finally decided at almost 90 that she is done keeping a 2 acre organic garden, she even did all her own rototilling. She hasn't eaten store bought vegetables for over 20 years, including pasta sauce, so she is going to work with a subscription farmer who is even going to grow some of the heirloom strains Mom has been growing for years using her seed stock.
Carol