If you have squirrels in the area, they of course have excellent climbing ability, and one of their behaviors is to prune the tips of tree branches off, presumably in the course of feeding...which sounds similar to what is being done to your tomatos. After one particularly bad spring, my whole neighborhood was littered with branch tips thrown down by squirrels. Squirrels and chipmunks also both dig random holes here and there in the search for food, or--in the case of chipmunks--preparatory to making a nest. If you used mushroom or any other form of loose mulch, you may have imported a mouse, rat, or something else along with it, in which case it is probably living in the garden itself. Therefore, the protective screening would of course not solve the problem. Repellants might do a better job if that is the case, but if your garden is the only feasible home in the area for the critter, it will probably resist leaving. I know that chipmunks can climb up an entire sunflower stem to eat the sunflower's seeds; maybe other rodents besides squirrels also have climbing abilities. The random nipping and destruction sounds suspiciously like a groundhog (they like to take nips out of things as a sort of turf-claiming thing), but unless you have ever seen one of them around or have a mound with a rather large groundhog-sized hole, you can rule that out, especially in the city. If your mulch is from a more rural location, I would incline toward the chipmunk theory. They are also quite territorial, and used to demolish the contents of some of my plant pots-- mainly because, I think, they didn't like where I had placed them. Chipmunks like to clear certain areas so they have a clear line of sight. If your mulch was from a more rural location, a chipmunk could have made a burrow in it, and been swept up along with the mulch.

This is my first time growing tomatoes and they were doing great. However, I noticed today that the leaves are darkening, almost black. We did have a lot of rain last week, is that it? I checked the plants for bugs and didnt see any. I'm growing 5 plants in containers and it only seems to be happening to 2 of them. They are in an organic soiless mix and I've fed them with fish/seaweed emulsion along with a little tomato tone. Can I fix them?!

Did you ever figure this out? If you're still struggling with that or another garden problem, you could contact your county's Extension Service office to ask them. Locate the office with the map at the link below -- Here is a link that might be useful: locate your county's Extension Service office

"You can get some metal posts and deer cloth pretty inexpensively" This! It's the only thing that allowed me to harvest toms in Wisconsin. I used 2"x 2" tall stakes around my raised bed(about two feet out all the way around) and tied the deer netting to it, leaving one corner loose for access which I secured with clothespins. The deer can't see it but they can feel it and leave it alone.