Went to Wallie World, bought a 6 pack of cherry tomatoe plants, stuck one each in a 1 gallon pot, placed pot in the little red wagon so I could pull them into the garage in the evening....the next morning, 1 tomatoe plant is gone. Looks like it has been plucked straight up out of the pot. No little leaves laying around, nothing. Next night, lost another one; and then again on the next night....hmmm. I checked for cut worms, nope there aren't any. Then I put the wagon in the sun room for the night, didn't lose one, again the next night....nope they are all there. Put the wagon back into the garage....Yup, one more gone. What eats tomatoe plants like this?? Thanks, Sissy

-- Sissy (iblong2Him@ilovejesus.net), May 07, 2002

Answers

Hi Sissy, I had the same thing happen to just 1 of my tomato plants out in the garden. I figured a rabbit or some other critter got curious and took it with him. I was surprised because I didn't think any animal would mess with tomatoes because the leaves are poisonous. Maybe you have a curious mouse?

-- Annie (mistletoe6@earthlink.net), May 07, 2002.

You actually have tomato plants in the ground !!??? Mine are still tiny little seedlings in the greenhouse...lucky you !!

-- Helena (windyacs@npacc.net), May 07, 2002.

Moles. They will tunnel under and just pull it through the ground and eat it, never leaving a clue, but the hole.

-- Lynelle SO.wesVA (x2ldp@aol.com), May 07, 2002.

I would guess some kind of a bird taking them for nesting material. Here in Indiana we have black birds that do that. The best way to prevent it is to pinch most of the lower leaves off and plant the plant real deep. It also developes more of a root system.

-- Mel Kelly (melkelly@webtv.net), May 07, 2002.

really, really big slugs?

ms. sissy, actually since it was the garage i'm betting rodents! they love juicy tender greenhouse grown plants. and when you plant them DON'T pinch off the lower leaves. a tomato plant wiil absorb nutrients & water thru its leaves readily. and one that has been transplanted & pruned has 2 stressfull things to overcome!

if you don't belive me do a side by side test. bury up to 80% of few 'leggy' tomato plants, leaf prune 1/2 of them & see who has the higher suvival rate, & better over all growth & fruit set.

gotta love it when less work means more food! :)

-- bj pepper ,in central MS. (pepper.pepper@excite.com), May 07, 2002.

not only do some folks have tomatoes in the ground, ms. helena, some of us even have cherry tomatoes fruiting right now! LOL ;)

-- bj pepper ,in central MS. (pepper.pepper@excite.com), May 07, 2002.

Cherry tomatoes already ! It's still freezing here, 20 degrees last Thur night. If a tomatoe plant disapeared out of it's pot overnight in the garage there would only be 1 suspect at my house, The Dog. Shes loves to pull up freshly planted stuff and walk around with it or just play with it.

-- John in Mn. (nospam@mywork.com), May 07, 2002.

I've had tomatoes in the ground since last October! Some of my heirloom Tommy Toes (cherry tomatoes) self-seeded in the compost pile. Everywhere I used the soil I've got tomatoes - hundreds of them ranging from 4" to 3'. And blossoms all over the big ones! I'm just letting them grow where they are - I figure if the spot was good enough to start and over-winter a tomato in zone 6, it should be great for growing it!

As for what is eating your plants - maybe it's the same little critter that kept plucking off my ripe tomatoes every night last summer and trying to pull them under the fence. I say "trying" because the poor thing never actually managed to do better than get them stuck there where the fence was low. Each morning I just went out and retrieved anywhere from 2 to 5 big juicy tomatoes! I finally made a trade with it. I put out little piles of chicken scratch next to it's favorite tomatoe plants. After that it just ate the scratch instead. Since scratch was such an acceptable dinner, I'm guessing it was probably a chipmunk or woodrat, but maybe it was a brownie - who knows?!

-- Deborah Stephenson (wonkaandgypsy@hotmail.com), May 07, 2002.

I would say it is a bird too. Around here we have little black birds with an orange beak that are a nuisance. They will make a nest in any hole in your house and will take over beutiful song bird nest to raise there own in. If you don't keep them killed out they will strip all your flowers and garden vegetable plants. A couple of summers ago my mother-in-law planted several tomato plants by her front porch and it didn't take but a 3 or 4 days for the little black birds to destroy all of them.

-- r.h. in okla. (rhays@sstelco.com), May 07, 2002.

My Mother taught me years ago that when you plant tomatoes early birds take them to weave into their nests. She figured they were smart enough to know that they will prevent mites in the nest. She always kept jugs on her tomatoes till they outgrew them. So do I. This year I had too many tomatoes and not enough jugs so several were left uncovered. I noticed a very interesting thing. The tomatoes under the jugs grow much larger than the others that are the same age but were not covered. I have only lost two plants to birds so far.

-- corky wolf (corkywolf@hotmail.com), May 07, 2002.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions/thoughts. Being as these were stored in the garage, it wasn't birds or moles. It is a rodent though! After some of you suggested it was a mouse, I went "hunting" and sure enough, the little critter has left his "mark" in my storage pantries! Yuck....so, today I am cleaning the pantry and setting out traps. In His grace, Sissy

-- Sissy (iblong2Him@ilovejesus.net), May 08, 2002.

neener-neener-neener! i was right, uh huh!, oh yeah!.

[hey ya gotta take your victory dances when you can!]

:) ->silly grin from

-- bj pepper ,in central MS. (pepper.pepper@excite.com), May 08, 2002.