Garden Monsters
(Critters • Garden)
May I present the hornworm.
The one pictured (and click on it for the full monstrous effect) is a Tobacco Hornworm – the second i’ve found munching like a small cow on my tomato plants within the past two days.
People call these Tomato Hornworms, but those actually are a very similar but different critter. Same size, same huge appetite for your tomato plants, but just a slightly different coloration. Here, close to the Texas Gulf Coast, we usually get the Tobacco version.
Their evilness lies in the fact that their moth mommy usually manages to deposit her eggs in deep foliage, and when the larvae hatch they are tiny and exactly the same green shade as the leaves. They are voracious eaters and growers.
This time of year I try to carefully check each tomato plant at least once a day. I checked and gave the all clear signal on Saturday. Then we went out of town for Mother’s Day and I didn’t get a chance to patrol for caterpillars until Monday. That’s all it took. One of these hornworm beasts had eaten a full half of a green tomato the size of a ping-pong ball, consumed the leaves and tops of several branches on the same plant, and probably would’ve eventually disposed of most of the rest of the plant like tree branches being fed into a chipper. Except I deciphered his camouflage. I admit that they piss me off. I threw it on the ground and stomped it.
The second one (pictured herein) was slightly smaller and had not yet caused as much damage as the first, so I removed the tomato leaf as he chomped on it, in order to snap the photo. Then I threw it on the ground and stomped it.
In about two weeks we’ll probably hold our annual Fort Bend Caterpillar Roundup and Barbecue, with prizes for biggest catch and ugliest catch. They have to weigh in at a state-mandated 2.5 pounds to qualify, otherwise it’s catch and release. But you’re allowed to release them onto the ground, where they may be legally stomped providing you don’t wear cleats.
Them’s the rules.
→ B.Dunn, May 12, 2009, 05 53 am
