Mountain Lane Homesteaders

DON'T BLAME THE COWS

Oh boy.  The mystery just keeps going!  The loss over my tomatoes has been traumatic but now it's just confusing.  We are certain that a cow has at one time walked through the garden due to the big deep prints and cow pies we found.  However, last night in a desperate attempt to save the few plants that we had left we put out tarps draped over some poles to cover all the still leafy plants.  This morning when I went up to check things out the tarps were still in tact and yet THIS is what I found:

Well......there is suppose to be a picture added here but I don't really know if it worked or not.  Guess I'll find out when this posts. 

Anyway, EVERY single plant is now eaten down to the stalk and I have no hope for a harvest.  I feel a little like Ma and Pa must have felt the time they lost their wheat harvest except that my livelyhood doesn't depend on it.  Remember their faces when the big storm was coming down and they were thinking about that wheat?  That was me last night!

WHAT IS EATING MY TOMATOES??????  Sam and I are thinking of staging a Friday night hunting session for whatever it is that is obviously small enough to crawl underneath the tarps and dine on our salsa!

Caleb says, "Awesome!"

Untitled Comment

12:05 AM, Saturday, July 15, 2006 .. Posted by GrandmaRosie

Attack of the Wier rabbit? Bunicllia?

Was the mystery solved?

8:40 AM, Wednesday, August 16, 2006 .. Posted by naturehouse

Darcy - Sorry to hear about your tomato loss. I'm commenting a month late. Did you ever figure out what it was? You said the leaves were still eaten under the tarp, and the stalks were left. I hate to say it, but that sounds like Hornworm damage or its smaller caterpillar cousins. My hornworms ate all the way down to the stalk, but luckily the plants were already pretty big so they survived the attack. I also had a dear eat two of my seedlings and it pulled the plant completely out of the ground.