I had to rip up all my tomato plants.
I was just feeding the rats/mice.
I had so many plants I just let them sprawl.Too many to stake/cage.
I tried picking up the plants but the green tomatoes would just fall off.
A shame, I had 24 different types.
I lost a 16oz mortgage lifter the rats ate green.
I have to rototill tomorrow then get more plants in the ground I have kicking around.
The second crop will be just for seed saving.
Those I can stake and put hardware cloth around.

The sprawling plants were nice and green no disease or yellow leaves.
The semi sprawl plants with exposed soil were turning yellow.
I assume from higher ground temps.

Do you put a layer of mulch on your garden? Most diseases are soil borne. I am surprised you did not see foliage disease. A mulch layer also greatly reduces higher soil temps. In our area without a mulch layer and if we let the tomatoes sprawl they would be dead very quickly from pathogens in the soil that transmit through the leaves. We cage and mulch (layers of newspaper and several inches of weed free straw). Not allowing leaf and soil contact helps keep disease at bay until we get our fill of tomatoes

Same here. No mulch, no maters.

slugworth wrote: ↑Thu Aug 01, 2024 7:51 am I had to rip up all my tomato plants.
I was just feeding the rats/mice.
I had so many plants I just let them sprawl.Too many to stake/cage.
I tried picking up the plants but the green tomatoes would just fall off.
A shame, I had 24 different types.
I lost a 16oz mortgage lifter the rats ate green.
I have to rototill tomorrow then get more plants in the ground I have kicking around.
The second crop will be just for seed saving.
Those I can stake and put hardware cloth around.

I'd go with chicken wire. It's less expensive, MUCH easier to cut, plus you could make long half hoops, that a row of plants would flop upon, and then not be on the ground.

So sad! That's going to be a real pain to protect from the little varmints.

I have a problem with rabbits, but at least they have left my tomatoes alone (so far).

I was so fed up with having to reach over the chicken wire (or climb over it) to weed/harvest the greens, that I tried to outwit them using upturned wire baskets and the like which only worked for a while. Even when the plants were bigger, they weren't deterred . It's Fort Knox, or no greens/beans/melons for me.
Next year it will be back to chicken wire, scratching myself and risking a fall when climbing over it. Darned rabbits!

Tormato wrote: ↑Thu Aug 01, 2024 11:18 am I'd go with chicken wire. It's less expensive, MUCH easier to cut, plus you could make long half hoops, that a row of plants would flop upon, and then not be on the ground.

mice run thru that like shot through a gun.
It has to be tiny holes.
Tractor supply had their plants marked down.
I got a bush goliath for $3.71
I have speckled roman,sundried tomatoes, and mr stripey to put in their place with proper protection.

slugworth wrote: ↑Thu Aug 01, 2024 12:39 pm

Tormato wrote: ↑Thu Aug 01, 2024 11:18 am I'd go with chicken wire. It's less expensive, MUCH easier to cut, plus you could make long half hoops, that a row of plants would flop upon, and then not be on the ground.

mice run thru that like shot through a gun.
It has to be tiny holes.
Tractor supply had their plants marked down.
I got a bush goliath for $3.71
I have speckled roman,sundried tomatoes, and mr stripey to put in their place with proper protection.

I've never had field mice do anything to tomato plants, and I've never had rats.

I hate to hear about ripping out plants. That was me last year. Residual herbicide not animal pests. No mice, rats or voles here either. Even the squirrels stay out. Hope you find a solution for excluding the rascals.

slugworth wrote: ↑Thu Aug 01, 2024 7:55 am The sprawling plants were nice and green no disease or yellow leaves.
The semi sprawl plants with exposed soil were turning yellow.
I assume from higher ground temps.

Cardboard is really effective when you have to let tomatoes sprawl. I have had plants get so big that the cage falls over. Then I use a pitchfork to lift as much of the plant as I can. Cardboard ready and notched for the stem, my assistant slides the cardboard under. If you break anything doing this your still ahead. Only one time have I had a mouse problem, a dozen mouse traps and a tub of pimento cheese solved that.

When I came back from Vietnam, I bought a farm with several small fields on it. Planted 500+ tomatoes and corn. Little brother drove the delivery truck for Sears so I had cardboard out the wazoo. Planted the tomatoes, most of them from my grandparents truck patch, and then laid the cardboard solid, very few weeds. I did make almost $4500.00 that year selling corn and tomatoes.

The advice about the cardboard came from my grandparents who had a monster garden and sold all kinds of produce.

you gotta get rid of the rats, or they will get the new plants if you can't protect them.
my rat experience in detroit.
i was going to have a bumper crop of my uncle steve tomatoes. plants were loaded up,
right about at breaker stage. oh boy oh boy oh boy. i went out to check them one day, and bites
were taken out of every tomato. the problem, rats. our next door neighbor, had beagles in an out
door pen behind the garage. rats were getting fat on the dog food. we could see them going in and
out of the garage, and they had taken over a broken down car in the drive way. they would jump up
on the front, and rear dash to sun themselves. i declared war that day. mad doesn't begin to describe
how i felt. i got rat traps, and a live trap from someone i knew that worked for the city public works
department. the rats caught in the live trap went swimming in a garbage can half full of water. the traps
stayed out until i stopped catching rats. it took awhile.


keith

They go after the fallout from the neighbors bird feeders.
Rats,like the poor,will always be with us.
I replanted today- sweating like Robert Hayes in the movie "airplane"
I am getting more reports locally of rabbits chewing up plants.

I need a greenhouse with a lock on the door.
One guy had a screen house with screen roof,that was interesting but too puny for me.