I wonder if anybody can help me figure out what is eating my tomatoes and maybe suggest how to get rid of whatever it is. It is just happening with one of my six tomato plants. They are all different varieties. The one hit is champion, if that makes any difference. Maybe it's sweeter or something. As soon as they ripen, they are hollowed completely out, leaving only the stem hanging from the plant. I swear I've lost a bushel before I can ever eat any. I had thought it was a rabbit, but the weird part is that it hasn't eaten my lettuce, carrots, or anything else except my beets. It wiped all of them out even though a had built a little fence around them. I have been fighting this creature for weeks now. I have fenced my tomatoes in with plastic poultry fencing and put rocks around the fence and bricks around the wood trying to keep it from burrowing under. I have tied cans and wind chimes around the plants thinking that might scare it. I have weed cloth underneath and can't feel any holes in it so I don't think it's a mole. The roots keep getting exposed because of digging around it. The neighbory plant is looking kind of sickly because of that, except it isn't eating the tomoatos off of that one. My husband decided it must be a field mouse because of the size of the burrow. So I put a sticky trap out yesterday. I just went out to check and there's another tomato eaten -- and nothing in the trap!! I'm feeling quite discouraged. Any suggestions?? I'm feeling ready to pull the plant up and forget it, but the tomatoes really are quite nice. I have taken to picking some green and letting them ripen in the house.

This is my first year, and the worst part has been constantly fighting pests. I am in a new suburb. My gardens are backed up against undeveloped lots. I have spent the summer fighting cabbage worms, Japanese beetles, cucumber beetles, and flea beetles, but I feel like I can at least stay a little bit ahead of the destruction from them. This has me completely stumped, though.

Thanks, Teresa