What Keeps Eating My Romas?

[Decado]

Every single day I go out to the garden to pick stuff I find 1 or 2 romas that look like this.
[img]https://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y69/wrathloki/8-18-2009/DSC02047.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y69/wrathloki/8-18-2009/DSC02045.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y69/wrathloki/8-18-2009/DSC02049.jpg[/img]
It looks like some fairly large bites are taken out of it, could it be raccoon? Whatever it is, I'm out like 15 roma's because of it .

[rainbowgardener]

Yeah, I've been having a lot of that, though usually my critters don't wait for them to get red. I have my tomatoes in a raised bed completely surrounded by deer netting, weighted/ staked down at the bottom and tied together at the top. That slows them down enough that they haven't gotten ALL my tomatoes, but some how they keep getting some!

In my case it is raccoons and/or groundhogs. Squirrels, possums, birds, turtles have also been known to take bites, but they don't usually eat half the tomato like that.

GRR!

[applestar]

In the last two days, I've found two red ripe tomatoes -- one was a 1.5" cherry tomato and one was a Principe Borghese (1"x2" oblong) -- both with "bites" taken out just like that, though not quite 1/2 of the fruit like yours. In both cases, the culprit was a brown cutworm with black sideways V's along it's side. This must be the "climbing cutworm" someone mentioned earlier this summer -- looks likes it's also called variegated cutworm. I took photo's but it's not in the computer yet. Will post later on.

One was still munching away, the other one was short distance away on a branch. I also found a tiny 1/4" hatchling trying to climb into a cracked tomato.

Ha! I remember SEEING this kind of moth in my tomato garden! https://www.marylandmoths.com/Html/Noctuidae/Noctuinae/Aniclini/Peridroma_saucia.html

[kimbledawn]

Yeeeesssss, Muhahahaha That is the culprit that I mentioned earlier that was attacking my plants. I have since moved on to bigger and better foes. Now squirrels are stealing green tomatoes off of my plants. I can't win.

[rainbowgardener]

I know what's eating mine is the raccoons... They got some more last night and trampled all over the top of the plants and broke some branches. This time I could tell that they got in by climbing the netting, UNTYING THE TWIST TIES that held the netting together at the top, and going in over the top. GRRRR!! (they were smooth plastic twist ties, not the grocery store kind, so easier to untie. NOW FIXED! Let's see what they do tonight).

I think the raccoons are cute when they are just eating the dry cat food we put out for the outdoor cats, but I am really starting to get tired of them getting so many of my tomatoes, despite them being caged in deer netting!

[Jan Davis]

Our neighborhood has dozens of racoon families, none of us ever ever ever leave cat food or anything else outside that will tempt them to hang around! We also have a few bears to keep the neighborhood folks on their toes keeping temptation to a minimum. Knock on wood, no four-legged creature damage to any of my veggies, however, a lovely young buck has trampled several of the sunflower patches!
It's my grasshopper wars that keep the neighbors chuckling - castille soap spray, garlic spray, hot pepper spray, neem oil added or not, I make my grasshopper tour twice a day and they're still munching!

[gixxerific]

Looks to me like a grizzly bear.