Last night, my dog was growling at the backyard window during most of the night and I heard rustling and scraping noises. In the morning, I surveyed my tomato patch and sure enough, the possum had struck again. All of the ripe tomatoes were gone and the tomato plants were disturbed. Also, my single ripening corno de toro gallo pepper had been eaten, with only the seed mass left on the plant. My other pepper plants are either dead or dying. The corno de toro rosso was entirely eaten, stalks and all and the blushing beauty peppers that I had nursed through an entire winter are gone as well. The bed is a total loss.
I have not done any further work to this bed, but once my work schedule permits me, I'm going to remove all the tomato plants. They are starting to naturally die back now that their fruit has ripened and probably wouldn't be producing more than another month or two anyway. The heirloom tomatoes that I had selected had been beautiful. Large, meaty and perfect for making sauce. I am sorry that I will not get a chance to sample them this year. There must be a better way to grow tomatoes so that I don't have this sort of losses to contend with. I will have to do research this winter to discover a safer way to grow tomatoes and sweet bell peppers.
1 comment:
Yikes - I had no idea that possums can do that sort of damage. How discouraging to find your tomatoes and sweet peppers all gone. No fair, I'd say.
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