The mystery of the disappearing tomato leaves

The mystery of the disappearing tomato leaves

  a case of dietary preference

It was a hot, summery day, yet not past the Spring Equinox, when I visited Dorothy’s Stumptown Nursery, and bought my first 2020 tomato seedlings.

I was excited – surely Global Warming meant that I could start early this year – we don’t normally put tomatoes into the ground until June.

Two days later I noticed that all the leaves had been eaten from the tomato plants I recently bought.  Not the stalk, not the stems, just the young, tender leaves.

I researched the causes – over a hundred bugs – short of pouring gasoline on the bed and setting it alight, I couldn’t fight a hundred bugs.

These were in my raised beds, unlikely to be normal bugs.  I got another few six-paks from Dorothy, trying to rule her out.  Some survived, some did not.  The difference was where I put them: amidst other plants – survival, all alone – gone the next day.  Dorothy was exonerated.  It’s a local predator.

I suspected my cat, Peppermint Pattie.  There were signs that a small(?) rodent-sized body had been laying in the bed where the disappearances had been reported.

I changed my planting tactics.  I now always plant by other large, hard-to-sleep-by plants.  This seemed to work. The tomato plants were growing, even the old ones that were stripped of their leaves.

Now there is an outbreak of Snow-Pea leaf-stripping.  I try the same tactic and have moderate success: some survive, some don’t.  I rest easy thinking that eventually, even the bare snow pea stalks will come back and thrive.

Judgement of the Court

Pattie has been found guilty of a highly herbivore proclivity.  She has been given time-off for good behavior, and her keeper will separate the snow peas and the tomatoes from other plants, providing Catnip in their place.