tomato horn worm Archives | Diana's Designs Austin

I’m tired of sharing, ok?

I’m just sayin’.

I like butterflies and moths as much as the next guy. I have planted a garden full of butterfly, bird and bee-friendly plants.
And now I am paying the price! The top photo used to a be a beautiful purple Datura, blooming just a few nights ago. Then one morning, Poof!

All gone.

Then there are the tomato hornworms that are making a stalk-y mess of my tomatoes. I am picking them off daily and just moving them elsewhere now.
All my veggies are under attack, as are many perennials throughout the garden. These are radishes being eaten alive.
My parsley is devoid of foliage, but full of swallowtail caterpillars and their remnants.
Someone likes the ruhbarb, too, though I haven’t harvested any for ME yet!
And the swiss chard must also be tasty to the caterpillars because it is full of holes, too.
Out in the rest of the garden, the cannas and the variegated shell ginger are being assaulted. I pruned some mangled canna leaves and found fuzzy white moth caterpillars on them — but I couldn’t determine which moths they will become. I relocated them and their leaves to the woods, too. Boy did those little buggers move fast! They knew I had a hold of their leaves and they were running for their lives, but I let them be…just somewhere ELSE!

I didn’t take pictures of the Moy Grande Hibiscus with little holes all over it from beetles or the Missouri Violets, Coneflowers and Silver Ponyfoot being eaten by the little baby bucks.

Sharing schmaring!

By Diana C. Kirby|2016-04-14T02:42:30-05:00June 13th, 2010|Blog, caterpillars, moths, Sharing Nature's Garden, tomato horn worm|0 Comments

Hoeing for hornworms

Holy Cow.

Imagine my horror when I inspected the garden today after returning from our 4 day trip to Indiana and found a tomato horn worm.

No, wait, not one.

But two.

No, wait, not two, but FOUR!

The horror.

So I got my thick gloves and my child’s hoe.

I picked them off one by one and hoed them to death.

(Did you know that their blood is green ooze, kinda like anti-freeze?)

Ewwwwwww…

Then I covered their carcasses with mulch in the garden path and gave them a proper burial.

It’s too hot now to follow up with BT, but you can bet I will be out there first thing in the morning to spray and make sure I got all the little buggers.

It took me a long time to find those four, and I am certain there are more that I simply can’t see. They blend in much too well. They are the epitome of camouflage.

Ahh … the tomato wars begin.

So far, the odds are still good.

Diana – 1, Hornworms – 0.

Are you prepared to do battle in the tomato wars of 2010? Who are your worst garden enemies?

By Diana C. Kirby|2016-04-14T02:42:31-05:00June 7th, 2010|Blog, Sharing Nature's Garden, tomato horn worm, tomatoes|0 Comments

Ah – HA. Gotcha!

Maybe I shouldn’t be quite so smug. But I am relieved.

The BT worked and I am seeing the demise of the tomato hornworms. Normally, I let caterpillars eat whatever they like – Mountain Laurel leaves or dill or parsley — heck I even plant the parsley for them.

But tomatoes — uh-uh. THAT is a different story. Especially those I grew from seed for the first time. No way Baby.

And especially now when they are full of big, fat tomatoes just ready to ripen and grace our table with delicious fruit.

Sometimes you’re the dog and sometimes you’re the fire hydrant … I’m the big dog today!

By Diana C. Kirby|2017-11-29T23:27:42-06:00June 17th, 2009|Blog, Sharing Nature's Garden, tomato horn worm|0 Comments

Ho – Ho – Hornworm Alert!

So here I was, into hour 3 of weeding the nasty mess of a vegetable garden awaiting me when I returned home from Disney World. I was pulling grass out of the paths and tying up tomatoes and cleaning off dead leaves and then…

I saw what looked like a weird, spotted tiny green tomato.

But it wasn’t a tomato — it was the HEAD of a tomato hornworm.

Aaaarrrghhhhh.

Nasty little fellow, isn’t he?

See the beautiful tomato plant he came from? It’s the one back against the wall — my first tomato grown from seed in the greenhouse, so I am quite fond of him.

And, since it was 100 degrees (no, that wasn’t a typo), and I didn’t see any more of them, I finished my weeding and waited until 8 p.m. to go out with a fresh batch of BT to try to save my beautiful crop of tomatoes.

After I found the hornworm, I found a little treasure while I was ripping out the bolted lettuce — a beet! A big ‘ol honkin’ beet. With beautiful leaves and perfectly shaped – it was so pretty – I wish I’d taken a picture of it when I picked it.

Instead you get a picture of it roasted and dusted with Kosher salt in the bowl! It was very yummy. I don’t remember planting beets … I did think I pulled one up several weeks ago, thinking it was lettuce … who knows! But it was so good, that when the weather cools down, I may actually plant some and try to remember they are there!

So, I think there is about another hour or work to be done in the veggie garden and then tomorrow I’ll move on to weeding the rock path tomorrow. It’s garden clean-up week next week. Kallie is in VBS for 1/2 day all week and I am committed to gardening for that time to get all caught up. (Ha!)

But then again, are we ever really “caught up” in the garden? Have YOU ever been caught up in your garden?

By Diana C. Kirby|2017-11-29T23:27:43-06:00June 14th, 2009|beets, Blog, Sharing Nature's Garden, tomato horn worm|0 Comments

tomato horn worm

I’m tired of sharing, ok?

Hoeing for hornworms

Ah – HA. Gotcha!

Ho – Ho – Hornworm Alert!

Escape in the garden