My 2025 Garden Update: Garden Pests Galore!
12. September 2025Well, the 2025 garden has gone by quickly this year. I had some major setbacks for sure! There was plenty of tomato damage. I’m still not sure what the main culprit was. Take your pick between bugs, squirrels, and RATS. My broccoli was completely eaten the day after I planted it. What did that? Rabbits perhaps? And the green beans were so pitiful I bought a bushel straight from a farm and ripped mine out. And then the temperature went down to around 50 degrees in AUGUST in Ohio. That is unheard of! But the garden wasn’t all a loss. So see my rundown below!
Tomatoes
This year’s tomato varieties from Johnny’s Selected Seeds were Blue Beech, Juliet, Verona, Sunrise Sauce, Wisconsin 55, Pruden’s Purple, and Sungold Cherry. This is the first time I’ve planted most of these varieties. The exceptions are Sungold Cherry and Juliet, which I’ve planted for years with great success. As usual, I will plant a mix of determinate and indeterminate varieties.
I had to battle quite a few garden pests this year. Squirrels are the absolute worst. I grew up in the country and we almost never saw squirrels. If we did see a squirrel, we would just stare lovingly at it because they were such a rare sight. But now I live in the city, and we have city squirrels. These are RATS with tails. They are beyond destructive. They dig up everything. They take bites out of everything (without finishing the tomato because they really like to snub you in the nose). I want them all dead. I am not over reacting!! I would trade them for deer in a heartbeat (and I’m sure those who battle deer would take my squirrels instead :)
Squirrels, Rats, and Bugs, oh my!
Many tomatoes had bites taken out of the tops this year. That is a little bizarre. Usually my tomatoes have bites out of the sides or bottoms. So at first I thought birds were pecking them. Once I found a giant beetle inside an open wound, but I’m not sure if he was the culprit or just an opportunist! A family of RATS also moved in under our deck. And when I say rats, I do mean actual rats and not squirrels. To date we have killed twelve rats. I have no idea how many more there are. But they, along with the squirrels and bugs, had a field day with my tomatoes.
Luckily, I planted Juliet tomatoes! It’s easily one of my favorite varieties, and I have planted Juliet for several years now. It is a highly sought after hybrid variety because it is so disease resistant. The plants are also loaded with fruit. This variety can get 12-18 tomatoes per cluster, wow! Every season this plant is incredibly prolific in my garden. So there were plenty of tomatoes left after squirrels ate a bunch. These tomatoes are also really easy to pick. When ripe, you can just touch them and they will fall off into your hand. So they are very easy to pick with one hand. They also have a long shelf life (several weeks & I’ve had some last a few months even).
Another new variety I had this year was Verona. I wanted to try this because it was described as a larger, more flavorful Juliet plum tomato variety. So since I LOVE Juliet, I figured I would give this one try. It’s an indeterminate and also has some resistance to Early Blight, Fusarium Wilt races 1, and Verticillium Wilt. But how did it match up to my favorite Juliet? Yes, the fruit was larger. But there weren’t as many on the plants as Juliet, naturally. They also ripened much slower than Juliet. But overall, it was a fairly decent tomato.
Sunrise Sauce is described as being a “low maintenance” orange roma tomato. This determinate plant grew fairly compact with large clusters of 4-6 oz tomatoes. The reason I wanted to try this variety was because fruit produces during a concentrated period. I thought that would work well for my summer canning.
So how did it grow in my garden? Nearly all of the tomatoes ripened within the same week. I harvested around 60 tomatoes from just a few plants early in the season. And then that was it. And when I say that was it, the plants were pretty much done. No more blossoms. No more fruit. Wow. I think this is a good variety to plant if you wanted to do succession planting. Just rip those finished tomatoes out and plant another crop.
My husband thought Sunrise Sauce tasted a bit like hot house tomatoes. The skin was very thick. The fruit was semi hollow. I roasted these with the skin on for canning. That is my favorite hands off way to peel tomatoes. No messing with boiling water! Just roast the maters and the skin slides right off. Then I usually put the skins in my dehydrator to make tomato powder. Waste not, want not!
Here is a comparison photo showing Juliet, Verona, and Sunrise Sauce tomatoes. Despite the smaller size, Juliet offers the most bang for your buck since it’s so prolific.
Blue Beech is a variety that I’ve wanted to plant for many years. But as you know, sometimes if you wait too long to purchase seeds, things sell out with your favorite seed vendor! Womp womp. But THIS is the year I got my order in early. Blue Beech caught my eye because it’s a hefty heirloom paste tomato that is supposed to put out a high yield of 8-10 oz fruit during a concentrated period of time. It’s great for canning sauce since it’s a paste variety.
So how did it grow in my garden? The plants were very slow growing. Most of my other tomatoes were ripened and these were still green or just blossoming. Several plants barely had any tomatoes on them. One plant had a ton, but varmints got most of them!!! And they even ate them when they were green. Grrrr! To date, I think I managed to get five tomatoes from three plants. That’s pretty bad. One tomato was really hefty and a few others looked more like peppers. Now that we are in September, one plant has a bunch of green tomatoes on it finally. So it’s a late producer. If you succession plant or want tomato varieties producing late into the Fall, this variety could work for you.
Wisconsin 55 is a big old flavorful 6-8 oz slicer variety. The backstory from Johnny’s for this notes that this variety is a resurrection of the classic strain. While there are a few strains of Wisconsin 55 available, their quality has degraded over time. Johnny’s variety is supposed to be a healthier plant with more consistent size and fewer fruit defects than other Wisconsin 55 strains. This strain was acquired from a plant geneticist from the University of Wisconsin who had frozen seeds purchased in the 1960’s! Wow! It’s an indeterminate variety.
So how did it grow in my garden? Pretty good! The squirrels certainly didn’t complain, womp womp! The plants produced a hefty amount of tennis ball sized fruit. They were great sliced on egg sammies. The skin is thinner, so roasting them to remove the skins produced crushed tomatoes, ha! Other varieties hold up better to roasting for sure. It also seems to have a good shelf life. Due to our pest infestation, I started harvesting tomatoes early before they ripened. Some tomatoes have been on my counter two weeks now and have not had any bad spots yet. I think I will definitely plant this variety again.
Pruden’s Purple is an early Brandywine type tomato. The fruits are quite large, with some going over a pound. It resists cracking and has dark pink skin with crimson flesh. It’s also a potato-leaf variety which I’ve only planted a few times. It’s an indeterminate plant.
So how did it grow in my garden? I predicted that these plants would produce like three huge tomatoes each. And when you have a plant that produces just a few large tomatoes, that’s risky business. Especially if you have pests. So sure enough, my massively large tomatoes were eaten by pests. Early on, something took big bites out of these beautiful babies when they were still green. I honestly thought I had some time before that happened. I tend to harvest red tomatoes early to let them ripen on the counter. There is nothing more infuriating than thinking you can wait just one more day… then the next day some pest beats you to it!
I would rather have a plant with a bunch of smaller tomatoes than just a few big ones. In my experience, the overall yield after wildlife interference is of course more with smaller plum and paste tomatoes. I may try this variety again though, because I never even got to taste it!
Sungold Cherry produces tasty little orangish fruit. I have planted this variety many seasons now. It is always a star performer. While it yields a hefty amount of fruit like many cherry varieties, the TASTE is the sweetest I’ve ever had. It’s an indeterminate vining plant, so be prepared for it to take over your garden! Plan your trellis and supports carefully, ha! Otherwise you will end up with a Tomato Monster taking over your garden. This is a hybrid plant, so don’t expect to save seeds and produce the same thing in future gardens.
So what did I put up with all of my tomatoes?
I canned most tomatoes diced in quart jars to use for spaghetti sauce and chili. I have 11 quarts total so far, with hopefully more on the way. I also canned vegetable soup using tomatoes, potatoes, black turtle beans, and the few handfuls of green beans I got from my own garden. This recipe called for corn which my husband can’t eat. So I added more veggies to offset the missing corn.
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The same week I canned veggie soup, I put up 8 jars of taco soup. I used the base recipe from Pressure Canning for Beginners and Beyond by Angi Schneider. I did change up the seasonings a bit though. And of course I had to leave the corn out of this recipe as well since my husband can’t eat it. I didn’t substitute any other veggies for the corn, so the yield was a little less. I think corn is fabulous in taco soup, so I will add a few spoons of frozen corn to my own bowl.
Several harvests of tomatoes were used to make fresh batches of spaghetti sauce. Any remaining handfuls of cherry or plum tomatoes will be made into Bruschetta. Not only is this stuff great on grilled bread or pasta salad, it’s seriously delicious eaten straight out of the jar.
Green Beans
Seychelles Pole Beans was a new variety for me this year. Normally I grow Fortex Pole Beans which grow up to 11” long. I thought I’d try a new variety this year. Seychelles has dark green stringless pods that are slow to develop white seeds, so this extends the harvest period. The average bean length is 5-6” long. They also grow in easy to harvest clusters. Since it’s a pole bean, it requires a trellis. If my garden was larger, I would grow more bush beans, but I’m always cramped for space. Growing vertical is the answer (or so I fool myself into believing)!
So how did it grow in my garden? Good grief, this was the worst bean season I have ever had. The bugs were relentless. I was too lazy to spray with Neem oil, so that’s what I get. The beans were doing so poorly, that I ripped them out to plant broccoli. Every year I convince myself to plant pole beans because of the allure of growing vertically to save space. But bush beans have always done better in my garden. They are more back breaking to pick, but still worth it.
I ordered a bushel of stringless beans from an Ohio farm. In my head, I couldn’t quite envision what a bushel of green beans looked like. Now I know. It’s a lot. And it was quite a hefty treasure chest of produce…. 28 pounds of beans (32 pounds with the crate)! After 3 days of canning, I got a total of 19 quarts, 6 pints, and a gallon of frozen beans to use for future recipes. There were still beans left, so I ended up on my neighbor’s porch begging him to take the leftovers (he gladly obliged, no begging was needed :) These beans were so amazing, hefty, and tender. I have no idea what variety they were. And I’m sure they were not organic.
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Green beans were my mom’s favorite thing to can. One year she put up 115 quarts. This was the year my grandpap planted several pounds in her garden thinking he was doing her a favor. He didn’t realize she had already planted several pounds herself. So we had quite a bounty of beans that season! And my mom was very, very tired. I felt her pain when I canned just one bushel of beans. It took me 1.5 hours to clean and snap one pot of beans to can 7 quarts. Yikes.
I was super excited to finally get enough beans so I could give her a few jars. She let me have her pressure canner a few years back. She used it for 40 years before retiring from canning. The canner was second hand when she got it. My dad bought it for $10 at an estate sale, WOW! It’s a rough around the edges Presto from the fifties that still works great (I just had to replace the seal and gauge). I mostly canned basic beans with a small amount of salt. For five quarts, I made Country Green Beans using a recipe from Pressure Canning for Beginners and Beyond by Angi Schneider. This is a raw pack recipe that uses pork broth and seasonings. I plan to serve it with potatoes and ham.
Cucumber
Quick Snack is a compact patio style cucumber that can be grown in a container with a trellis. I splurged this year and bought a few new metal garden beds and raised containers. One container was used to grow this cucumber. The Quick Snack variety is supposed to grow a ton of 2-4” cocktail cucumbers that aren’t bitter. I have not grown cucumbers for a number of years since my neighbor is a pro cuc grower who shares his bounty with me. I’ve made quite a few pickles and jars of dill relish over the years from cucumbers I didn’t have to grow myself. That’s kind of cool. But this plant caught my eye since it grows tiny cucumbers. I thought I’d try pickling them whole this year.
So how did it grow in my garden? Meh. It produced maybe a half gallon of cucumbers. Then the plants pooped out from bugs. I managed to get one measly quart jar of pickles from three plants. I decided to pickle these whole instead of sliced. And guess what? They tasted gross. I used my standard issue brine that always tastes great. But these pickles are barely edible. I may chop them up to use for relish because I do not like to waste.
Broccoli
A few years ago I started planting broccoli from seed. I had only planted broccoli once in the past with greenhouse plants. My impression of homegrown broccoli is that it’s much smaller than heads you get from the store. BUT, the taste is pretty incredible. I planted the same 2 varieties again this year. Imperial is a heat tolerant variety. Happy Rich is a MINI Broccoli variety which produces jumbo-sized florets that look like small heads of broccoli. There will be many side shoots to harvest regularly for a continued production. I grew both of these in a raised bed during the summer for a fall harvest. I protected the plants with a shade cloth during the growing season.
So how did it grow in my garden? WELP, my broccoli was completely eaten the day after I planted it. And when I say completely eaten, I almost questioned if I had even planted it in the first place! Stems and all were gone, vanished! I had covered two raised beds with chicken wire and shade cloth. So something like a baby bunny may have gotten through an exposed section. I’m not sure what bug could’ve mowed down 30 broccoli plants in a day! I started new seeds almost right after this destruction. Most of the plants are flourishing in my garden now. I preemptively sprayed them with Neem oil. They have not been touched by the wildlife so far. While broccoli is a great cool weather crop, I’ve grown it successfully during the blazing heat of the summer since I use shade cloth. This will be the latest in the season I have ever planted broccoli. So hopefully it still does well.
Potatoes
Potatoes are one of those crops that I don’t plant very often. They take up space that I don’t have. It feels like my harvest isn’t worth the space I gave up that could’ve been used for something else. BUT, organic potatoes cost quite a bit at the grocery compared to the regular taters. So it’s good to get a few pounds of organic goodies from my own garden. I don’t splurge on any fancy varieties. I go down the street to our small mom and pop farm store that sells individual seed potatoes and onion bulbs by the pound. So you can buy just a handful if that’s all you need. I got six red potatoes to plant in my new 17 inch raised bed. I filled this bed with the same homemade potting soil I use for my carrots. I later topped the soil off with composted manure since potatoes are heavy feeders.
So how did this unknown red potato variety do in my garden? Pretty decent! I didn’t officially weigh my bounty, but it was at least 10 pounds of spuds. Some were pretty decent in size. One looked like three potatoes had grown together into one. Several looked like snowmen. The really small spuds were scrubbed well and roasted whole with the skins on.
Pumpkin
I did not plant pumpkins this year, the wildlife did. If there’s one thing the squirrels excel at (besides destruction), it’s that they are great at spreading pumpkin seeds around for the following season. I’m a sucker for volunteer plants and almost never pull them up. In fact, some of my best volunteer plants have been the most prolific. How strange and great is that!? But the one thing I should pull up is squash plants. WHY? Because I know they will eventually succumb to the Squash Vine Borer, my arch nemesis. In my old blog post, I cover ways to “defeat” or at least manage, this nasty bugger. But it all takes so much work. Squash plants can be big and sprawling, so it’s not worth the effort for me any longer. Plus, I just get too depressed when the plant ultimately fails.
So how did this volunteer squash plant do in my yard? I got TWO pumpkins before the plants died. There were four volunteer plants sprawled over one side of my yard. Only one plant managed to get female blossoms on it. I made a chicken wire cage around the pumpkins so the squirrels didn’t get munchy. One day I saw them covered in squash bugs, so I sprayed with Neem oil. And now the vines are dying back, and they’ve turned orange. The pumpkins are small, but they won’t go to waste. I will roast them for freezer puree or maybe make a pie right away.
Luffa Gourd
I have attempted, and failed, to grow Luffa Gourd for several seasons. Last year the varmints ate my tender plants. They did the same this year even though I had chicken wire protecting them. Upon the realization that my plants weren’t going to spring back, I planted a few cherry tomato plants around my garden gate trellis. But lo and behold, the luffa DID make a comeback, sort of. Now a serious gardener would’ve yanked either the tomatoes or luffa gourds out so one of the plants could thrive. BUT, I am a bit of a chaos gardener. And I seriously don’t trust the wildlife. That would totally be like the squirrels to kill the plant that I didn’t yank out. I thought I’d let the luffa and cherry tomato plants duke it out to see who the ultimate survivor was!
So what does my luffa tomato garden nook look like? It looks incredibly chaotic! The plants have mingled with invasive wild grape vine and out of control blackberry bushes growing in the alley. There is a thick cluster of matted vines and thorns. Naturally the Sungold tomatoes are not overly prolific in this nook. But they do have the benefit of being hidden from the wildlife a little. Now that it’s mid September, the Luffa Gourd finally blossomed. But I seriously doubt there will be time left for any gourds. But we shall see! The Luffa has now grown over my fence into the alley… and up a phone pole. So even if the plant does get gourds, I may not be able to harvest them. Womp, womp!
So how did YOUR garden grow this year? Did you have an epic season or an awful flop? What was your biggest success? Let us know in the comments below.
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