Hello. On Saturday I had a nice round red tomato. I thought, 'I'll pick that tomorrow,' and promptly forgot about it. Last night (Sunday) I was out late after dark checking my vege gardens. I remembered the tomato and lo and behold, you guessed it - Gone!
Who or what could have relieve me of my tomato? The garden in question is fully fenced. About 4' high or so.
Thank you in advance, Jane :(
Could be birds. Do you get bower birds in your area? They are very clever and will even eat chillies. We had an area fenced all around with stiff plastic mesh and fine bird netting on top, but something was still getting in and eating our chillies. I caught a bower bird in the act, it had managed to get through a small hole half way up the bird netting, and I watched it fly up and easily scramble out the hole again. I couldn't believe it. Apparently birds don't feel the chillie heat like humans do. It could also be possums, ring tails are expecially naughty and almost silent. They eat the rinds entirely off our lemons and for years we couldn't figure out what was leaving "nude" lemons hanging in our tree, until we caught a pair of them eating fruit in our grapefruit tree, and the tiny bite marks were the same. For the lemons and grapefruit we can't do much except pick them all as soon as they seem ready enough. For veggies we usually have to build fort knox around them with fine veggie netting, which seems to keep *most* birds, possums, moths/grubs and snails out.
Mike, yes. That's what I thought... I took yr advice and pick them as soon as I see them start to ripen now.
(Can they be picked green to ripen indoors?)
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