<p>It isn’t a mole. They eat grubs and worms. I am one of the few people I know who like moles but they eat Japanese beetle grubs so for me they are good guys. Do you have a naughty neighbor or racoons? We did have a dog that would eat the tomatoes right off the plant.</p>
<p>^^ I share your frustration, mom60. I have lots of tomatoes, of six varieties, ripening. However several now have big bites taken out of them. </p>
<p>The tops of some of my green beans have been chopped off as well, along with the blossom tops of numerous zinnias. Most of my peas were enjoyed by some animal with hands that ripped them from the pods. Yes, they left the pods on the ground for me.</p>
<p>Several years ago I fenced in my vegetable garden against deer. But apparently squirrels or other climbing animals have been coming in for meals.</p>
<p>The latest thing I have tried is to put plastic baggies loosely over the ripening tomatoes (read about it somewhere). I am out of town now but when I am back will see if this approach worked.</p>
<p>It is the tomatoes I care about the most, as with them I really appreciate how much better they taste home grown compared to supermarket bought.</p>
<p>Grateful that my rhubarb never appealed to the local wildlife.</p>
<p>“I think the dog would remove more of the plant.”</p>
<p>My dog eats just the tomato and always only the ones which are just about ripe to pick. </p>
<p>It’s easier for me now to just go to the farm stand and buy their homegrown tomatoes.</p>
<p>I am guessing some sort of gopher or vole since I have viewed a small rodent like animal taking a pod off of a plant nearby. I also have a lawn full of gophers and a planter with tunnel holes. The tomatoes and cucumbers are in containers on a cement veranda. It could still very well be the dog. I noticed my one yellow cucumber is also gone. I noticed the dog smelling it a few days ago.
It is easier to just buy tomatoes but I try every year. I gave up on my raised beds since even with the wired bottoms I still would lose the war with the gophers and dogs.
No deer and I have never seen a raccoon in my yard. Skunks but they don’t come on the veranda.</p>
<p>Mom60, when I was a child our elderly gardening neighbor told me that he solved his gopher problem by getting bags of human hair clippings from his barber buddy and stuffing the hair in the gopher’s holes. Problem solved, he said. Apparently the little varmints can’t stand the smell of human hair and therefore hightailed it to someone else’s yard.</p>
<p>Oh, and some good news waiting for me when I got home to check on the plants this evening. My first eggplant. Pinstripe variety. Small but a beautiful shade of purple. Hoping the fruit grows a lot larger, although I believe Pinstripe eggplants are said to be typically no larger than a baseball.</p>
<p>My eggplants are doing well. Well, the plant parts…</p>
<p>Comfry keeps on invading the rhubarb patch. Any ideas?</p>
<p>Picked last of tomatoes today. That’s it for my plants in central Florida…too hot for plants to set fruit now. I might plant a new crop in Sept and hope I can beat any early Florida freezes.</p>
<p>None of the eggplant blooms turned into veggies last season so didnt plant them. Lettuce (arugula) got drowned in all our rain. But the tomatoes are green and growing.</p>
<p>Help! I planted a tomato- I think Celebrity in a container. It has been growing very rapidly. Has about 20 plump green tomatoes. But since last week’s Northern Cali heat wave the lower leaves are browning and drying, stems are drying and no new fruit is forming. I detect some brownish dust on plant. What should I do ?</p>
<p>Ummm… water??</p>
<p>^^jym, it was 108 here in the central valley last week. Even water couldn’t save us, but it helped. You have. kids around here now, right ? I LOVE the thought of that. Maybe we pass each other on the street, during our forays to “the city”. </p>
<p>Container tomatoes in N Cal might be getting spider mites. Check out the California, the Container , the tomato growing, or the tomato disease forums on gardenweb. Or one of the disease or pest identifier forums. Don’t just start spraying stuff! Heat alone will stop fruit set on a lot of varieties. Are you inland d or coastal? </p>
<p>Amazing shallots in earthboxes this year. Harvested all the nectarines and made sorbet. Birds got the breba figs, which is too bad, because the early ones are prized, but by August I am so through.</p>
<p>It’s done nothig here but rain all summer. I’m thinking the garden is drowning around now. Hoping for some sun to dry things out (I can’t believe I just said that!)</p>
<p>I attempted to grow basil this year but with the heat it completely dried out. I watered it every day but nothing could save it! (Or I am just terrible with plants)</p>
<p>Thanks for the tips. I am inland and have been watering regularly. I will check out those gardening forums Shrinkwrap.</p>
<p>I have a stewardia pseudocamelia in the patio that has many flower buds. The flowers fall off as soon as they bloom. Does anyone know why?</p>
<p>Jumping in - no ideas for you Iglooo. Hope someone else helps with that.</p>
<p>Just noticed this thread. I saw it when it first started, but we were still in snow season so I was too winter bound to be interested. </p>
<p>My garden has been going gangbusters. My husband and son took out my old garden soil and filled it with my compost that I’ve been building for a couple of years. The combination of that plus much sun and rain has made for the best crop of tomatoes that I’ve ever had. I have about 8 planted tomatoes - grape, cherry, mid-season slicing and a new grafted variety. All of them are like bushes over three feet high with many tomatoes and blossoms still coming on. I also have three or four volunteers tomato plants that I keep forgetting about because they aren’t properly caged and are hidden by volunteer squash/pumpkin/gourd vines. </p>
<p>My brought upon myself problem, is the aforementioned volunteer squash/pumpkin/gourd vines that I probably should have weeded out when they first appeared. Well, I actually did pull out about 6 of them, and relocated a couple to my bird feeding area. I just have a hard time pulling out pretty flowering plants and when they first appeared it was before everything else took off so they seemed innocuous. Some of the plants look to be ghost pumpkins, some look like yellow squash and one looks like a striped gourd. Meanwhile, the cukes that I planted to make into pickles are starting to climb up the mystery stems but not having much success.</p>
<p>Ah, just noticed this thread. We recently moved to the midwest, and this is my first summer here. Haven’t planted any tomatoes – there is only one spot in the yard that gets any light – but maybe next year. I am trying to identify the plants in the border of the yard. They are different from the California stuff. I just found out what a lungwort is . . .</p>
<p>We have had wild black raspberries by the buckets. I have frozen a lot of them so I can have berry smoothies this winter. Thank you rain! </p>
<p>Kathiep- squash and pumpkins can interbreed so you may have squaskin.</p>
<p>Onward, more worried about having them interbreed with my cukes! Would that be Pukes? ;)</p>