AACK!! My tomatoes are exploding!

[MScott1851]

I decided to try my hand at growing tomatoes in a container this year, since we have no room for a garden. I have two BetterBoy plants in five gallon planters on my patio, with at least 10 little tomatoes growing right now.

I had two that were about three-four days away from being ripe, and I noticed one of them had a small crack in it...no worries, I've seen cracks in tomatoes before.

Well, when I got home last night and went to water them, this is what I found!

This morning, Clint went out to see my "exploding tomatoes" and found ANOTHER one!

They ripened literally in 8 hours.

Are they getting too hot on my patio near the side of the house, and literally bursting? I hesitate to think it's any sort of critter, my subdivision is densely populated with no wooded areas anywhere nearby. Plus, a critter would have pulled them off the vine or at least damaged the rest of the plant.

I'm going to move them onto the grass in a shaded area away from the brick house, and start pulling them before they ripen and put them in the windowsill to finish.

Any other suggestions? I was so happy, then they burst. Sniff, sniff.

 

[perdidobay]

That looks like teeth marks on the tomatoes to me... I've had problems with squirrels eating my tomatos before. they like them ripe!
edited to add... it could also be rabbits.

 

[mommytotwo]

Yup, it does look like an animal had gotten to it. You could pick your tomatoes and put them in a brown paper bag, tie it up and leave them in your house till they come ripened.

 

[nocnurse]

Squirrels are notorious for taking a bite or two out of each ripe tomato.

 

[MScott1851]

Damn.

Well, I pulled that other one, now I just have 9-10 little green ones. I am going to start bringing them in at night, I guess.

Although DH would love to sit and wait and pick off some squirrels (especially ones who eat his tomatoes) we live too close to our neighbors.

 

[Maleficent2]

water(rain)until I saw the pics I think I agree looks like animal damage....maybe you could tie a paper bag around them at night and remove it during the day...


Mal

 

[loriandmatt]

definately critter eating.

we once had a chipmunk that took a liking to our cherry tomatoes. made my dad so mad, but that passed quickly when he realized he could sit on the porch and watch the cute little bugger picking and eating them. cute as could be. of course, he had several plants and this guy only went after one. dad had enough to spare some for the chippie.

- lori

 

[TN Traveler]

Could also be turtles. We have Better Boys, Early Girls, Bradleys and Big Boys just to see which grows best....apparently they're all pretty good b/c we have bite marks like this in different ones at different times. We really don't have alot of squirrels around here b/c of my dog but turtles and birds get them all the time. When we set our our new plants out, we put a fence arched over them (6" square quage wire). This keeps the birds out and since it's incleased pretty everywhere except on one end, the rabbits dont get in either. Also keeps the deer out altho our Lab does a pretty good job of that too!!
Karen

 

[lazarru]

Other than a fence around the whole garden and the top, any other way to keep the squirels away from them? We've started a garden for the 1st time this year, about an 8x8 space and our tomoate plants are doing really well, tons of green ones starting up, would hate to see us wind up just feeding the squriels, they do enoguh other damage to our stuff. Guess I could look into some sort of fencing, but not sure how much that's going to wind up costing.