Hi,

struggling to get my outdoor pot grown tomatoes to ripen this year (apart
from the cherry tomatoes which are doing fine).

Each time I see a ripe tomato and pick it, I find that it has been 'got at'.

I am now pondering if the tomatoes are attacked just as they ripen, or if
the damage causes them to ripen more quickly.

No need to water them today, although I will need to right the ones which
have blown over once the wind eases.

My mini-greenhouse (plastic bag over a frame style) has just blown right off
my pepper plant, which seems to be doing better than the peppers growing out
on the patio.

What a nasty day :-(

Cheers
Dave R

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On 13/9/04 10:34, in article , "David W.E.
Roberts" wrote:

Hi,

struggling to get my outdoor pot grown tomatoes to ripen this year (apart
from the cherry tomatoes which are doing fine).

Each time I see a ripe tomato and pick it, I find that it has been 'got at'.

We find it's blackbirds that go for the tomatoes.
snip
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
South Devon
(remove the weeds to email me)

"David W.E. Roberts" wrote in news:2ql7stFv6banU1@uni-
berlin.de:

I am now pondering if the tomatoes are attacked just as they ripen, or if
the damage causes them to ripen more quickly.

I'm not sure about tomatoes, but I have observed the same phenomenon with
my strawberries.

After some pondering, I decided that they *probably* just spot the ripeness
quicker than I do: after all, if you are a slug, you can sit underneath the
fruit all day long, just watching...

(for those with long memories, the ants that made a speciality of hollowing
my strawbs out from the inside seem to have vanished.

I'm now feeling really guilty, because I used one of those evil anti-ant
sprays in the greenhouse in a fit of fury at being scuttled over one day.
I didn't think it would spread its evilness abroad, but *all* my ants seem
to have up and left me now. :-(

I'm hoping it's either the rain or that they objected to being posted about
in urg: I did not intend an ant genocide!)

Victoria
--
gardening on a north-facing hill
in South-East Cornwall
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