I came out one morning and several tomatoe plants had the leaves eaten off of them. How can I stop them from eating them and what can I do or put on the plants to stop this? Carl Evans
What type of wildlife eats tomato plant leaves
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It is probably rabbits, if the leaves that were eaten are low on the plant. Rabbits attack gardens at night. Keep your grass cut low, especially the clover and they will avoid your yard more. If the leaves taken were high, especially the top leaves, then it was deer. They are also late night garden crusaders. If the leaves have nonuniform holes eaten out of the leaves then it is most likely snail damage. Get a good snail and slug bait that kills them. Old trick, put out bowls of beer…They love it. They get drunk and drown. The best thing to use for the animals is a motion activated sprinkler/s that hooks up to your hose pipe. Here is what i use that works, and it is much cheaper. I tie white flags on the stakes around my garden. Mine are made of plastic bags cut into strips that are 3-4 inches wide and 14-18 inches long. Deer avoid them because the flags are like white deer tails waving in danger. Tie them about 3-4 feet above the ground. Milk jugs, aluminum cans, or pie pans tied together and tied to posts around the garden help make noise that startles the invaders. I prefer the cans. The rabbits were a little trickier to stop. I use ORIGINAL IRISH SPRING SOAP BARS…very important. I drill a hole in them and tie them to my stakes also, letting them hang low in the breeze. You can also grate the bars like cheese and sprinkle the shavings everywhere. The soap makes the garden smell like a human. I have stakes on all four corners of my garden, and one on each long side. I have a flag, noisemaker, and soap on each bordering stake. And just in case the rabbits get accustomed to the distractions, I use a combination of water, vinegar, and dawn soap to spray on the leaves. This also keeps the bugs off to some degree. Spraying or dusting the plants with Seven Dust or Seven Concentrate works well also. But don’t use the sprays when the plants are flowering. This will kill or drive away bees. If you must spray when flowering, be careful not to get any on the flowers.