What is eating my new plants?

[Dinamight]

I have managed to get my tomato seeds to sprout and several seem to be doing very well. But yesterday or last night something ate the top off all of my smaller starters. I thought it was slugs, but I have slug pellet and bait all around them. Every single one was chopped off at the top of the stem.

Could it be a mongoose (we saw one sneaking around the area), or birds? This happened last year with our beans and papaya starts too and at that time I thought it was slugs but now that I have the bait all around I can't imagine they can so carefully bypass the bait and just take the tops off the delicate stems, which are on a tray on top of an upside down bucket.

[Carey]

We have had snails that descended into pots & plants from ABOVE... usually on ti leaves, but if you have anything that is above (and even a little over from) the plants, the snails may still be the culprit ( I must admit... I do NOT like the slimy little varmits & probably blame them for more slithering than they deserve... still, I would blame them first... & look for alternative entry points...) esp. with the dry - if your pots are on the ground they could also be coming up from the ground & into the pot holes...

[Daniel]

SUH-LUGS, they like tender leaves.

Daniel R Diamond

[dcl]

We use a mosquito type netting that we got from Ace to put around our plants to keep the slugs and bugs off. With the cucumbers, we would open up the netting during the day for polination, but the tomatoes should be self polinating. This really helped.

[Dinamight]

So slugs it is! I have heard copper keeps them away - would a ring of pennies glued around the pots keep them from climbing over the pennies and into the pots?

Some of my tomato plants are looking good - and I'd now like to start some lettuce, the most tender and juicy leaves of all! I'll try the netting, DCL, but am wondering if the copper on the pennies might work too.

I did have slug bait around my small plants but I guess the slugs found a route through the bait.

[Sean]

I've been killing a small beetle, ~3/8", on my plants at night. Fortunately they went away, but talk about eaters! The calla's, gardenias, two other plants I can't even remember the name of, have all had these little buggers on them one time or another. Also, I did kill a few grasshoppers and toss them into the pond. They were eating as well. Hmmm, the question might be what doesn't eat plants around here?

As for copper and pennies, I'd just try some wire with the coating peeled off.

[mikewj]

Try adhesive backed copper tape. it's about 3/4" wide, comes in a roll. Try Home Depot or ACE. I've used it around the top of tomato pots, works well to discourage snails and slugs.

[allensylves]

Here is another possibility I plan to try:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140325030337&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

20 feet by 6 inches of copper 'blend' mesh @$13.45 with free shipping sounds reasonably economical. It should be possible to cut it into narrower bands and hopefully will have enough copper content to be effective.

Allen
Baton Rouge, LA & HPP

[jade]

It is birds. I have seen them do it. They will look for seeds and chop off the tops of new plants. The best way is either start the seed inside until they are big enough to transplant or cover the starter seeds. I made a cover that goes over the plants. I used pvc for the frame and hot glued screen over it. I no longer have a problem with bugs or birds.

[mdd7000]

Home Depot does not carry the copper tape. The hardware store located in Pahoa Marketplace does, but is rather pricey. Pennies will not work. They are actually zinc with a very small amount of copper on the outside.