ACK!! Downed Tomatoes. Please help quick!

[Wolf-Kim]

We planted 9 tomato plants and have excitedly watched them grow. They bloomed this week, but all of a sudden one looked like it got trampled, then withered and died.

This tomato was right in the middle of the bunch. No footprints or pawprints to point at the dogs or family. A squash plant also had the very same thing happen to it. I excused it thinking something just accidently trampled the plants. The squash recovered the tomato did not.

I just came in out of the garden and two more tomatos are down!!! My dogs do not have access to the garden it is surrounded by a picket fence.

There are tunnels going through the garden, if this helps at all. Is there a tunnling critter that munches on squash, but really favors tomato plants? This is so frustrating! I've never had a problem in my garden before!

I need help! I'm losing my precious tomato plants so close to fruiting!

 

[Wolf-Kim]

Oh yeah, I am located in North Carolina.

I'm just so frustrated that I don't know what's happening.

They didn't have too many symptoms to help figure it out.

They looked like something ran them over, all withered with several branches snapped and kinda flopped on the ground.

No bugs that I've seen. They "were" pretty healthy, strong, beautiful plants.

-Kim

 

[Tutter]

When I read your first post, I was leaning towards voles, since there was no above ground disturbance.

The broken branches...well, I don't know. That's odd. I hope someone else has an idea for you.

 

[Wolf-Kim]

When I read your first post, I was leaning towards voles, since there was no above ground disturbance.

The broken branches...well, I don't know. That's odd. I hope someone else has an idea for you.

Thanks Tutter. Only the squash had a few broken branches, but then I think I figured out what happened to it. My father hung a birdfeeder almost right above it, I'm thinking a couple of quarreling songbirds ran into it. The squash has recovered but the tomatoes have not.

Since I actually had light out this morning I was able to really look at first downed tomato and I realized that the base very near the ground had given out. I'll be buying/making tomato cages today. We had bought Bonnies Celebrities because we had them before and they didn't seem to "need" a cage, but we always had them in a cage.

I'll see if this works. If structural stability isn't the issue, I'll start aiming at the voles.

How do you get rid of voles?(Other than letting my terrier mix into the garden. LOL. She'd get 'em and all the rest of my plants)

-Kim

 

[patandchickens]

Yes, sounds like they may just need to be staked or caged.

I don't think anything but good mousing cats or Jack Russells gets rid of voles, and you don't want either of them rummaging thru your garden anyway. Weasels help, but can't very well be summoned at will and if you have chickens there may be some issues there. Basically, voles are a nuisance.

Good luck,

Pat

 

[OaklandCityFarmer]

Pat has a point.

And although voles are hard to get rid of, it's not impossible.

Were they staked/caged? If not, then they fell over and the main stem broke and then the plant withered? Did this happen?

When you pulled up the withered plants was there root damage? Or no roots at all?