Southern California tomatoes being half eaten at night

9 years ago

Hello,

Just recently several of the tomatoes I have been growing in my backyard have been halfway eaten during the night time hours. The tomatoes are heirloom varieties and are in a raised bed type situation which is over a concrete surface. The tomatoes are still green but fairly large in size. It appears that the tomatoes are being chomped on, scratched at and sometimes hallowed out. There are no animal droppings to suggest rats or opossums. However tonight I put rat poison out and went to check the poison at approximately 11:00 pm to see if it had been chewed at and discovered that the poison was untouched but four additional tomatoes had been partially eaten. Two of the tomatoes appeared to have fang marks and the other two were just hallway eaten. I know for sure there are opossums in the area, however I am not sure that they are the culprit. There are also a lot of crickets, but Im not sure if they could do that sort of damage. I did have tomato worms but I have taken care of the worms. There are dropping on some of the leaves, however I believe they are left over from the worms. Any ideas of what the animal is, and how to stop it from eating all the tomatoes?

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dmenace79
Original Author

9 years ago

Thanks Jean. I have a big walk through rat trap outside with poison that I put out last night, but they did not seem to enter and eat at the poison. Any suggestions of how to get them to take the bait instead of the tomatoes?

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Comments (11)

cold_weather_is_evil
9 years ago
My first suspicion is that you are in drought status and things are desperate to get some water. "Hollowed out" is the clue. The solution to that is to give them some water. If you have drip, the water can be automatically refreshed.
dmenace79
Original Author
9 years ago
They are on a drip system and are being watered at each tomato plant with a gallon and some with a two gallon feeder for ten minutes three times a day. I am sure that they are being eaten by an animal. When I say "hollowed out," I mean there is an animal that takes a bite of the tomato and then eats away at the inside. There are also other tomatoes with just bite marks in them. I also have a cherry tomato plant that had hundreds of green tomatoes now depleted to a couple dozen. I attached a photo on the original post and another one on this post for reference. Thank you in advance for any advise.
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jean001a
9 years ago
Roof rats!
jean001a
9 years ago
Keep the chomped tomatoes on the vine as long as they're not rotting.

Get a bunch of snap-type traps, bait several with peanut butter, and wire each trap to something heavy (eg cement block) with a long lead.
The 2nd day replace the bait (peanut butter) but this time 1st tuck in a small piece of nut, then slather w/ p-butter.

Jean,
who gardened in Long Beach, CA, for 30-some years
and who successfully fought roof rats with the above strategy

This post was edited by jean001a on Sun, Jun 22, 14 at 17:00
dmenace79
Original Author
9 years ago
Thanks Jean. Long Beach is the area I am in, so i'm sure your advise will work.
cymraes
9 years ago
What are roof rat's? Curious because I have a couple tomatoes that look like that. I live in the Sierra foothills.
jean001a
9 years ago
roof rat info at
http://ucipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn74106.html

Here is a link that might be useful: roof rats & more
lm13
9 years ago
I feel your pain. Same thing is happening in my garden and we set out traps. Caught one the first night, but another one opted for tomatoes over peanut butter last night. :( Set out some extras tonight so hoping for more snaps! (Be careful though - we accidentally caught a bird this morning when we didn't get out there early enough to disable them.)

I'll try adding nuts tomorrow night Jean. Thanks for the tip!
djkj
9 years ago
Wow, looks just the damage to my tomatoes (see link i posted today morning)

Here is a link that might be useful: Rat/Chipmunk damage
Ed MacLaughlin
3 years ago
last modified: 3 years ago
i am having the same exact problem. half eaten 'hollowed out' tomatoes as soon as they start to ripen.. what is doing this? i have put different types of bug spray including RAID on them before i go to bed and they still get eaten!!! i have also fenced in the plants with chicken wire and they still get eaten! i have seen little flying insects all over them, but don't think these little flying bugs can possibly eat that much in 8 hours at night?