I planted two tomato plants in my container, and I used some plastic wiring to wrap around the plants , yes, both side and top. I don't understand why my riped tomatoe keeps dissapearing??!!! At first i thought it was the birds, that's why I added the cage, and then now even with the cage?? The entire tomato is gone, not eaten bits and pieces by say like a hornworm. I'm puzzled. Please help!
actually resorted to buying one of these. One evening, several years ago now, a bear wondered into town and ended up eating 90% of my sweet corn in a single meal. (2 weeks later someone told me they saw a bear on the street that night. Until then I was wondering just how many raccoons had raided my corn and why they never came back.)
The bear never returned but now deer have come into town and sometimes my yard. I have put it out when I had some bad neighbors move in across the street. (I guess they didn't like vegetables though.)
When I use it, I place the sensor at the most natural entry way into my garden. I place it about 18 inches above the ground and it tells me if a person, deer, dog, or even raccoon enters my yard at that point.
On Sun, 08 Aug 2004 21:35:44 -0500 in , Katra graced the world with this thought:
Had a friend that kept missing whole fruits from various patio container plants... He couldn't figure out what kind of animal was doing it. On a suggestion from someone, he put a light dusting of flour on the patio, hoping for footprints. Next day he came home from work, and discovered the prints of a womans' tennis shoe where he thought he'd find raccoon or opossum prints... lol.
not sure how big the mesh is on your cage but, assuming it's fairly small. any critter small enuf to make it thru the mesh is unlikely to be able to consume an entire tomato in one visit. since you're container gardening, is it safe to assume you're in an apartment complex where it'd be easy for someone to steal the maters?
TOo funny! No, i'm sure it's not my neighbors. I live in a townhouse type of house in bay area, my plants are on my deck which is elevated and I don't think my neighbor will be climbing into my deck to eat ONE small tomato. ehhehehe
I tightened any "holes" in my wiring cage yesterday, and again, my red tomatoes dissapear!! What is weird is i planted the root part of the green onion I got from the store, and 4 out of 6 dissapeared as well!! However, my pepper plant was left untouched.
I'm very puzzled. I've always grown tomatoes without any problems.
hmm, if your plants are unaccessible by any unknown humans.....that definately complicates things....
if the containers aren't too heavy, u may want to try wheeling them in at night for a while, see if the problem goes away. i would at a minimum start paying attention to what part of the day/night the tomatoes are disappearing and maybe setup a camcorder to look thru the slider (i'm guess you have one that leads out to your balcony) and record what's going on out there. i've seen many a mystery solved this way. once u catch the culprit on tape, plz let us know what it was!!
One year I had a similar problem. My tomatoes are also in pots on an upper deck. The only access to the deck is through my dining room - no outside stairs. Tomatoes were disappearing and I didn't think a bird could haul one off nor eat one there and not leave something behind. Then I opened the bbq and there were partially munched tomatoes sitting on the grate. Apparently it was a nice, private eating room :-) Upon further investigation it was clear that an overhanging branch onto the roof made critter access possible. Trimmed the branch and the rat or squirrel or whatever stopped getting on the deck and feasting. It's amazing how small a hole a rodent can squeeze through.
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