Rats ugghh.Two years ago I put in two 3'sq tomato raised beds at my parents house in Orange county. The first year we cleared and dug the clay, built the boxes, amended with pricy organics, planted heirlooms that grew huge, out of the texas cages and out over the box, and as they ripened each tomato would get about 1/3 eaten. (Why can't the pests just eat one whole one and leave two?) I put 5' posts at the corners of the boxes, and the enclosed the plants completey with heavy duty plastic bird netting. This took at least a day of sweat and swearing! After a few days we found that the rats just gnawed right through and continued to help themselves. Last year I only planted two Patio red tomatoes, not as tasty but very compact and produce well. The plants hardly grew larger than the texas cages, and as the tomatos started to redden I bought AVIARY wire, smaller than chicken wire, and wrapped it around the cages, making a closed cone top, and a door in the wire to access the plants. Also making sure that the wire screen is deep into the ground to prevent burrowing. This worked really well and we were able to harvest all the tomatoes ourselves! This year I have some patios and some celebritys in the boxes, I put them in late so no fruit yet. I plan to build a larger frame and enclose it all in aviary wire. The stuff is expensive, and I don't even want to calculate the price per tomato of this whole process. But it is a labor of love because my mother enjoys fresh tomatoes so very much. I believe that everyone should grow at least some of their own vegies, like victory gardens. My grandfather did this close to what is now LAX, and though he had some unwanted pests, and I remember he would trap and kill them,nothing like what the problem is for us now. But in urban areas like Orange county the possums,coons,squirels, voles gophers and lovely rats can wipe out all your work in a night. There are also lots of coyotes around, enough that it is not safe to let the cats out, when I was a kid and our cats roamed the roof and garden day and night, and that probably discouraged rats! It is frustrating. It has only gotten worse as the last of the open spaces get built on, which nixes the theory that this things are wild and only venture to our yards and trash cans for supplimentary feeding. These are all totally urban animals, surviving with no "natural" habitat.

They are on a drip system and are being watered at each tomato plant with a gallon and some with a two gallon feeder for ten minutes three times a day. I am sure that they are being eaten by an animal. When I say "hollowed out," I mean there is an animal that takes a bite of the tomato and then eats away at the inside. There are also other tomatoes with just bite marks in them. I also have a cherry tomato plant that had hundreds of green tomatoes now depleted to a couple dozen. I attached a photo on the original post and another one on this post for reference. Thank you in advance for any advise.

Don't rule out deer, especially when tomatoes several feet up are taken while ones lower down are not. I live in a small town in southwest Ohio and have never seen so many deer in my neighborhood just a few blocks from town center. On Sunday, I caught a yearling eating daylillies in my front yard at midmorning, another in my fenced backyard in late afternoon near the tomatoes and a third in the backyard around 11 p.m. My golden retreiver went crazy each time but they kept coming back. Monday morning I found a green tomato that looked like yours a few yards away from my garden. At one edge I saw the clear teeth marks that could only have been made by a large vegetarian mammal. The drought and heat may make them more bold in their foraging.

Calypso is not listed for tomatoes but it is a pretty wide spectrum insecticide. I would give it a shot. Might be hard to mix that small of an amount unless you have something premixed. Really kind of an odd infestation. My only guess would be that something did either crawl in or fly in and deposit eggs or contaminated soil.