How tall are (were) the tomato plants? What parts were eaten?

Any rabbits in the neighborhood?

Rats can also do that.

I've seen Starlings attack my neighbor's tomato plants by plucking off the main stems. My neighbor put her plants at a very young age.

Birds will definitely get your tomatoes, especially the smaller ones. I'm learning that some of what I had blamed on birds was actually the doing of ants who will saw them down like a beaver and make off with the whole thing overnight. No shortage of things that will go at them.

The majority of mine just got nipped off at the top, darn it all. I've babied those little seedlings for months, and now that I'm starting to harden the off, there they go. How do you manage this if something is getting them?? They're several inches tall so I don't think it's wise to cover them.... Any ideas?

I cover my seedlings with bird netting. When they get a little bigger birds are no longer an issue in my conditions. Then I have to deal with rabbits mice and other critters.

Zeuspaul

Zeusau, the netting doesn't create dimness for the seedlings? At this point I know it's important that they get all the light they can...

Put collars down for the crawlers and over the top you can put anything. I just happened to have a lot of scavenged quarter and half inch hardware cloth so have made some little covers with the stuff and some dikes. Seems to work ok.

EDIT PS: It's not perfect; I still manage to feed lots of critters.

This post was edited by cold_weather_is_evil on Sun, Apr 13, 14 at 16:54

I found the culprits -- quail. Some small poultry netting cages solved the issue.

Sjerin, bird netting lets almost all of the sun through. If it had a shade rating it would be less than five percent.

Zeuspaul