I guess now I am looking at a late season mess. I have removed all the tomato plants from one bed and have four more beds with tomatoes still growing and putting out a few tomatoes now that we have had some rain the past two weeks. I am having a real hard time getting a viable eating tomato off my plants now due to the pecking of all my fruits as soon as a bit of color shows on any of them. I have never had birds ruin so many fruits in the past as is happening now. During the drought that just ended about two weeks ago they seem to have really developed a taste for ripe tomatoes which I foolishly thought would end when the rains came and water was plentiful for them. They are doing almost as much damage as rats would do but there are so many of them in my garden each day.
From inspecting my plants the last few days I see that the cooling affect of the rain has allowed a bunch of new tiny tomatoes to start appearing on various plants throughout the tomato beds. I have tomatoes on a couple of the oldest plants in the garden and some of the newest. I hate to do it but I just have to remove a lot of the plants to get room to start some fall crops. It is easier to just remove all the plants in a couple of beds to make it easier to prepare them for new plantings. I have cleared the plants from one bed and will start on another today then take down the racks that supported them. I really dread this part of gardening.
Bill