Friday, May 2, 2008

A mystery

We have an unsolved mystery in our vegetable garden. I mentioned before that we planted some marigolds in the garden between the tomato plants because they are supposed to help deter pests. At least in theory. The reality is that about two days after we planted, the marigold were eaten. And not just a little nibble on the leaves. Entire plants are gone. They just disappeared overnight. Then branches on the tomato plants started to disappear and then one morning we found this:
It was a two foot tall tomato plant, now it's a stump. This morning I found a pepper plant that met the same fate. We've had trouble with slugs and caterpillars in the past, but I think this pest is much larger. We have a varmint. And, we better discover what and how to stop it or soon we're not going to have any garden left!

3 comments:

Jill said...

I don't know much about gardening (even though I grew up on a hobby farm for goodness sakes!) because we've always lived in a suburb with a tiny lot or, like now, in a rental place. So, I hope this doesn't sound, well, dumb.
But, we had a huge problem with rabbits back in Iowa. They ate every piece of our landscaping. Even things I didn't think rabbits ate. We knew it was rabbits because we saw their 'droppings', their footprints, and a whole nest of the actual bunnies in one of our bushes.
Let us know if you ever solve your mystery!

Tracy said...

very interesting!

Colleen said...

I was thinking rabbits, too. We put a mesh fence around the garden bed, but when we woke up yesterday morning, another tomato plant was gone. This is one tricky rabbit!