Tomato munchers

Aug 23, 2004 5 Replies

I'm finally getting a few ripe tomatoes after a cool, rainy summer but every tomato that's ripened so far has holes eaten in it. Today I found the culprits - it seems to be sowbugs munching the holes. Does anyone have a suggestion to preserve my remaining crop?? Thanks for any help.


I've only seen sowbugs at ground level. Are your tomatoes not supported in cages or some such thing?

it certainly sounds like your tomato's aren't supported because Sowbugs are natures garbage men.....they clean up dead debris and diseased plant matter. So your tomato's have a problem. Unless you're defficient in rain and it's very very dry....................in that case, it's insects cleaning up distressed, diseased fruit when it's dry and the fruit are providing everything they're looking for......moisture, food, etc. and I know what snafu means....LOL roflmao.............. (my dad used the phrase everytime we drove thru a pocket of skunk spray air, but I eventually found out his term wasn't CLOSE to what it meant originally when he heard it while he was in the Army during WWII...........makes me wish he was alive so I could tease him by reminding him what snafu stood for........systems normal, all frelled up (Farscape word for the f-werd) madgardener who still uses "SNAFU" when I drive thru a pocket of skunk alert gas with a family member, my dad's offbeat ways live on past his death 14

1/2 years ago................

OK....you and I have the same theory. Now....for a quick solution: I'd get some plastic window screen, slap together some quick frames, and have ready some foot-tall chunks of rock, wood or cinder block to put under the frames and get them off the ground. Slide the frames under the plants carefully, lift, and raise the whole thing up a foot.

Unsupported, if the sow bugs didn't attack, rot would've done just as much damage. At the very least, there should've been a really thick layer of straw.

"snafu" wrote in news:cgdoga$qh5$ snipped-for-privacy@news.chatlink.com:

the sowbugs are opportunists, not the culprit. holes in tomatoes could be : tomato hornworm, chipmunks, squirrels, slugs, mice, voles... go look at the tomatoes at night & see if there are slugs. cool, rainy summers are slug heaven. lee

If it's damage during the day, then I'd guess squirrels. But if it's at night the it's probably mice or rats.

enigma wrote in news:Xns9554586FC66E5enigmaempirenet@199.125.85.9:

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