Shop Products
Houzz Logo Print
zacharys

Who would do such a thing?!

Well this is shaping up to be a pretty dismal year.

After all the awful weather we've had so far, beet leaf miners, cutworms, aphids and more, I wake up this morning to find a entire tomato plant just ripped right out of the ground and tossed to the side. WHO DOES THAT!?

You didn't even have the courtesy of eating it! You just wandered by, looked at and thought to yourself "I feel like destroying that for no reason in particular!" And then proceeded to ruin my morning!

Just be warned, once I figure out what you are, I've got a 12ga and a whole box of shells left over from goose season. Just ask the fox who thought he'd have himself a nice chicken dinner on me. He thought he'd come back for seconds one night, didn't even see it coming. Or the rats who thought under my shed was cozy little cottage, 4 of them gone in squeeze of the trigger. You have been warned. I will find out what you are, I will find out where you are, and then, your earthly days are over.

Comments (6)

  • digit
    9 years ago

    Zach, deer have gone through my garden before and shown similar disdain for the gardener.

    That year, I had built a very substantial tomato trellis with boards. This was back in the days before the number of plants had really gotten to, shall we say, "substantial" levels.

    So, I had about 10 plants nearly to a time when they would have ripe fruit. The deer cropped all the taller foliage and pulled off about one-half the green fruit!

    Much of the fruit was just dropped. And, these were tomato plants! I had thought that the foliage is, at least, somewhat toxic. Of course, I should have known better than that since they had previously shown up to eat potato plants.

    Guard your garden!

    Steve

  • katgardener
    9 years ago

    All I can offer is sympathy. If it was an animal, at least there was no maliciousness involved. If it was human, may he or she at least experience the appropriate karma!!!

  • ZachS. z5 Platteville, Colorado
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    No, it was an animal. Unless my neighbors are sneaking into the back yard and ripping up my plants, which is doubtful.

    From what I can see the culprit also was trying to get into the chicken coop. The tracks are not very distinguishable but it was either a fox or a raccoon. They look more like a fox, but a coon is more likely to also go after the plants. so I'll pull surveillance to see what it is. If it was after the chickens, it will be back soon.

    Malicious or not, it's got to go, and I don't putz around with traps and deterrents that may or may not work, I just dispatch them quick and easy and feed them to coyotes, they gotta eat, too ;).

  • david52 Zone 6
    9 years ago

    Look for tracks - deer are a prime suspect, but I've had raccoons, skunks, and dogs dig up plants.

    Edited - got called away and didn't see your last post.

    One year, I had skunk go along and dig up a row of tomato plants, looking for grubs or something. I've had raccoons dig up dozens of daffodil bulbs I'd planted the day before, and the classic, we planted 150 seedling pine trees and the deer came along and, while nibbling off the top, pulled up most of them.

    This post was edited by david52 on Thu, May 29, 14 at 13:12

  • kudzu9
    9 years ago

    Have you been using fish fertilizer? I've had raccoons make quite a mess digging to find the fish!

  • ZachS. z5 Platteville, Colorado
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    This wasn't digging, this was like something grabbed it and pulled it, very bizarre behavior. I think after finding that chicken coop was locked up tight, it got angry and just felt like being destructive.