I think Birds are Eating my Tomatoes

[dmosc@earthlink.net]

Trying to grow tomatoes for 1st time. I think birds are eating them or some other animal. Help!

[jamesy]

Hi , I honestly don't think its birds eating them , ive every kind of bird I could imagine here and they don't bother the garden at all.
More likely a groundhog or some type of rodent ? Squirrel possibly although I'm over run with squirrels and ive yet to see one scale the garden fence.

[rainbowgardener]

Some birds will take bites out of tomatoes. But then again so will squirrels, groundhogs, raccoons (all of which are on my property) as well as deer. I grow my tomatoes in a raised bed. I put tall stakes all around the bed and then cover the whole thing with deer netting. Stake it down all around the bottom edge and pull it together and connect with twist ties over the top, so the tomatoes are in a total cage of netting. Works well for me, though I do have to keep checking to make sure it's secured at the bottom, something managed to get one of my tomatoes so far this season -- but without the netting critters get ALL of them. You could do the same thing without the raised bed as long as your tomato plants are grouped together. Otherwise you would need to cover each individually.

[applestar]

When I'm out in the garden and it's hot, and I get thirsty, I pick a tomato and suck it down. Birds are probably doing the same thing. Make sure to provide water for the wildlife.

Triangular/slashed holes - birds
Round pencil size holes - tomato/corn ear worms
Bites out of green tomatoes and foliage - tomato hornworms
Entire tomato fruit missing - squirrels
Lower tomato plant parts missing - groundhogs
Upper tomato plant parts missing - deer
...

[rainbowgardener]

Well sort of, applestar, but on my property both squirrels and ground hogs will come by and take big round bites out of green or ripening tomatoes. They usually pull the tomatoes off in the process, so I find a partly eaten tomato lying on the ground. Where I used to live we had deer. They would come by at dawn and eat all the nearly ripe tomatoes. So I would have this tomato I was watching and watching, waiting for it to be ripe enough and the next day it would just be gone.... They never left a single one for me, not even partly eaten pieces.

[jamesy]

I think you may have just answered why the birds here leave the garden alone Applestar , theres a fair size pond nearby with all kinds of fish and frogs , snakes , turtles , probably others so its clean water , I'm thinking the birds drink and bathe there.

I can count half a dozen or more big fat groundhogs out by the treeline every day , totally over run with squirrels , loads of deer , countless rabbits..yet ive never had a problem with them..yet.
Is the big deer fence protecting the garden from all these critters ? Id have thought a squirrel could easily climb it , groundhogs could burrow..nothing,they leave it alone.