Well, I'm voting frog or toad, cause they're good guys and I tell myself thats what the holes in my yard are, too. Crayfish kind of pile up mud around the edges. I know some big spiders dig holes. And a spider that big would end my gardening career. We won't discuss rodents, I just won't have it.

I'm with you on ending my gardening career Amy. I think I'd be too freaked out to go back out there. I thought about putting a stick in there but then I might hurt myself trying to get away if something DID come out at me. Ugh!!

With holes that size, it usually is something like rats or chipmunks. Vole holes normally are much smaller. It could be anything that like tos burrow, and as Amy mentioned, crayfish mound up mud around the edge. Gophers and moles also mound up soil, so I'd rule them out. Sometimes one animal or another digs the hole and then something else moves into it. Our toads and frogs make relatively small and more hidden holes. I have had more shallow holes pop up, and those sometimes are places where turtles dug a shallow hole, laid eggs, and covered up the eggs.

Walter Reeves has a great column where he links the size of such holes to what usually digs them. Here it is:

Diagnosing Animal Holes

We had a hole somewhat larger than that in our garden this year, and a baby cottontail (alone, no mama, no siblings) was living in it. He or she eventually got bigger and left the garden. I suspect it got into the garden, got trapped when I closed the gate, and dug a hole for shelter/safety. It was too small to send out into the big world when I found it, so I left it alone and it stayed another 3 weeks or so before apparently leaving on its own. I left the gate open as much as I could so that it could leave voluntarily if it wanted to.

On other occasions, I've had holes like that pop up on the edge of a raised bed, where the wooden edging meets the pathway and have found young, small possums and armadillos sleeping in them. It is hard to say who was more surprised---the sleeping varmint or me. The holes did go back quite a ways into the soil and I was surprised to find them occupied.

Melissa, I'm not an expert but I think your tomato plant looks very good for this time of year. It'll be back into production as soon as the weather cools.

I agree with Bon on your tomato plants. Just remove the lower foliage that looks sickly. If more leaves start looking that way, then you'll need to try to figure out what it is but often lower leaves just get sickly looking because they are the oldest leaves on the plant and are being shaded out by foliage above them.

Thanks Bon and Dawn! I haven't seen anymore that look that way so I am good there. However, I went out this morning, well my scheduled morning which is more early afternoonish, and saw little black things on a few of the leaves. I know that worms can leave little droppings but not sure if it's a worm or not. I did see a little black egg on the top of a leaf and again, not sure if it's a worm or not and if so, is it good or bad. I did see a few little eaten spots on one leaf but nothing more. I am afraid that I might have baby hornworms. Those things just really get on my nerves. I love gardening but I really hate the bugs. lol