Something has been chewing my tomato stems

b54red · May 6, 2012

Over the last couple of days I have had a strange thing happen to over half a dozen newly planted seedlings. I have gone out the last few mornings to find 2 or 3 newly planted tomatoes just fallen over. At first I thought one was just broken by the wind but I realized the wind has not been strong the last week so I checked closely and they looked like something had chewed 3/4 of the way through the stem and the plant just toppled over. The strange thing is the stem was chewed through about 2 inches above the mulch which is 3 inches or more of newly applied cypress. I have never seen anything like it and thought it was just a one time occurrence until it happened 3 days in a row. Only two of the plants were planted next to each other. I dusted the stems with Sevin yesterday and only one had been chewed this morning. Could this be some kind of snail? Maybe it's a small animal like a mouse? This has only happened in one bed that runs parallel to a large hedge of Ligustrum.

May 6, 2012	#1
b54red Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Alabama Posts: 7,068	Something has been chewing my tomato stems Over the last couple of days I have had a strange thing happen to over half a dozen newly planted seedlings. I have gone out the last few mornings to find 2 or 3 newly planted tomatoes just fallen over. At first I thought one was just broken by the wind but I realized the wind has not been strong the last week so I checked closely and they looked like something had chewed 3/4 of the way through the stem and the plant just toppled over. The strange thing is the stem was chewed through about 2 inches above the mulch which is 3 inches or more of newly applied cypress. I have never seen anything like it and thought it was just a one time occurrence until it happened 3 days in a row. Only two of the plants were planted next to each other. I dusted the stems with Sevin yesterday and only one had been chewed this morning. Could this be some kind of snail? Maybe it's a small animal like a mouse? This has only happened in one bed that runs parallel to a large hedge of Ligustrum.