Her Worth is Far Above Jewels: What's In My Garden? Insect Addition

While we are still getting a good deal of tomatoes, I've come to realize that tomato season might be nearing its end over at the Morgan household. Mainly because these little suckers are eating my tomatoes!

One thing I've learned with having a vegetable garden, especially with growing tomatoes, is that you have to be aware of all the bugs that are near and around your veggies. Knowing which ones are good and bad will definitely help you keep your garden in good shape. The insect in question is a Tomato Hornworm, however I have reason to believe it's actually a Tobacco Hornworm because of the color horn. These worms are super easy to identify, if you can find them first, because of their colored horn on the back tail. Tobacco Hornworms have a red horn and Tomato Hornworms have a black horn. Both species can be found on tomato, pepper, eggplant, potato, and tobacco plants. I found mine on both my pepper and tomato plants. So, just because a hornworm is found on your tomato plant doesn't necessarily mean its a Tomato Hornworm. Anywho, these worms eat your tomatoes, are VERY hard to spot, and are EXTREMELY hard to peal off - it took Ray like 7 minutes just to peal it off - they don't give up with out a fight that's for sure. We used a spray that we picked up at Lowe's and for now we haven't seen that many "eaten" up tomatoes. I'm hoping that it is working.

Some More Advice if You Have Tomato/Tobacco Hornworm Problem

-Even though it's hard, peel off the worms!

-Use an insecticide that is designed to kill Hornworms! We used this one.

-Rotate your soil - larvae are laid in the soil not on the plant itself!

-Plant flowers that deter Hornworms, like Marigolds, around the base of your tomatoes.

-If you spot a worm with an eggsac on its back don't kill the worm! This is a parasite and will become a wasp. When the wasp hatches it feeds off of/kills the hornworm. Wasps are good for your garden!

-Look for black/dark brown spots (worm poop) on your plant! If you see some you probably have a worm nearby.

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On a happier note, since Hornworms obviously don't like cucumbers, my cucumber plant is flourishing! We've already picked 3 cucumbers and there are 2 more on the way. We had one in a salad with a few tomatoes from our garden and it was so delicious. So fresh!

In my flower garden, all my wildflower seeds that I planted in the spring are fully mature now! One grew into a beautiful sunflower (which I ended up not taking a picture of...oh well), and the other two plants I'm still determining what the flowers could be. Today one of these flowers finally bloomed!