I watered my plants as I always do at 6am and everything is great. I get back home from work at 4pm to this!!! 15-20 of them demolished….was this birds!? It looks like stabby marks and most of them were red ones…ugh! I want to know what mother f'n beast i need to slay!!!
by Physical-Drop7378
23 Comments
Squirrels
My dog….her name is Annie. Sorry about that. Otherwise shes an awesome dog.
Was going to say the same thing, squirrels. When it gets hot and they get thirsty and there is a beautiful globe of juice hanging in front of them, they tend to dig in for a nice snack/drink.
Some people have had luck with motion sensor sprinklers to keep rodent pests like that away. I have a camera that faces my garden beds so I can see any large critters that get in. You may look into investing one or both depending what you want to invest.
As info you can pick way earlier.
I’ve had issues with rats over the past couple of years. I thought it was squirrels, but I set a live trap and caught three of them in the same trap!
The squirrels are thirsty and go after the plants for liquid. Put a shallow dish of water out for them to drink and they will leave the plants alone. If they still go after them, I suggest making your own super deluxe hot pepper spray as a deterrent.
The 2 birds that eat tomatoes in my yard are the mockingbirds and occasionally the cardinals. I have 6 birdbaths of various heights/depths and a 2 bowls on the ground all on the other side of my back yard. That really helped.
I have a family of ground hogs that ravage my (their) garden!🤷🏻♂️ My wife is a nature lover and tells me they get their fill first.
I’ve used wire mesh around my tomato plants. A pain to harvest them tho. I wasn’t sure if the lizards were eating my tomatoes so I bought 1/4” size mesh. Chicken coop wire won’t work with the critters in my area.
Probably squirrels or similar and a lot of the time they just want the water. Just leave water out for them somewhere and see if it helps.
Toddler
My squirrels take the whole fruit (even huge ones) with them and leave what they don’t finish far away. They usually leave tomatoes alone, but eat cucumber and pepper leaves in the dry summer. Rats eat partial fruits over multiple nights. Use a few sunflower seeds and attach them with a string, as they can run away. Be prepared to finish them off by drowning. If you use the black Tomcat rat traps you can close them every morning to avoid killing birds. Then arm them again in the evening. You probably need to kill 30 rats over the summer as they have multiple generations during that time. A pack of 8 traps is a good starting point.
You can’t kill all the squirrels even if you tried. Get a dog and let him/her potty in your garden area. Only the boldest squirrels will show up after that. After getting my dog 2 years ago, I’ve not had one garden loss (that I noticed).
Mockingbirds!!!
It kills me they don’t even enjoy it, just tear it up. I would have finished that tomato if *I* raided your garden
That’s a Sasquatch sized bite.
The CHOMP 😭
Squirrels, or in my personal case with these exact fruit wounds, and the motherfucker nommed on exactly 1/2 of every topside of every beet I had, instead of eating the whole thing, was a woodchuck/groundhog. Ate the tops, and just sampled every single beet in a patch that would have given me about three bushels. I didn’t kill it, but I did trap it, spray a bright pink spot on its ass, in a have a heart, and then dropped that mfer two miles away from home in a coyote infested hedgerow and wheat field, and wooded area. Who turned up alive two weeks later, that shit ass, eating my cabbages, hot pink ass spot slightly faded. So that time, I ate it, if only to make sure it’s only revenge on me was how gamey it was off the smoker. Made sure to remove the musk glands this time, but it wasn’t too gamey to the point a lil counter sweet and Hawaiian rolls couldn’t cover up.
Time to put skwerrels on the menu. Airgun, trap, slingshot…whatever works for you. You’re at war and there are no rules for this one. Your adversary would ignore them anyway..
It could be birds, also. I’ve watched them take small tomatoes off my plants.
Me! Nom nom nom! 😈
Pick that one that is yellowish and let it finish on your kitchen counter. Pick them all when they start to turn and you get the same flavor but no critter marks.