The Joys of Gardening! (Hornworms On Tomatoes?)

Hello all my lovely friends out there in Blogland! How are you all doing? It is my hope that you are doing all you can to stay healthy during these trying times.

Richard and I have been quite busy with our garden. (Well, Richard mostly, I just help, a bit!)  One weekend, we WRESTLED with something called a tomato hornworm. I had no idea what it was, I had to do a search on the internet for it. (In fact, it is called a TOBACCO hornworm, it has white, horizontal markings on the side. If it has red v-shaped markings, it is a tomato hornworm. The way to remember it, the white can remind you of cigarettes and the red can remind you of vine ripened tomatoes! Hey, I didn't make this up, just telling you what I learned!)  Okay, it doesn't really matter which one it is, both of them will eat your tomatoes and leaves SLAP UP!  So, you must get rid of them! My information said to get a bucket of soapy water and drop them into it. Yep, it does the trick!  Now, it is called a hornworm  but it is actually a caterpillar for the Sphinx moth.  It is called that because when the caterpillar is at rest, apparently, it reminds one of the Sphinx. (Don't ask me, whenever I saw it, it was head first into one of our tomatoes!)  No worries, after that one weekend, we were able to pick them off the plants and are now enjoying our tomatoes, besides our crisp cucumbers!  And sometimes a cucumber will "hide" from you and will grow too big and will be too bitter to eat. I think I told you in a post before that when I was a little girl, we would wrap up the overgrown cuke in a wash cloth and pretend it was a baby.  Did anybody else do that? So funny to think of these childhood memories...

                                     (Note the small pickling cucumber the correct size and the overgrown one that was hiding! I pickled a few but honestly, we just like to eat them!)

Since I spent so much time on research, I will share my newfound knowledge about the destructive caterpillars which are usually called hornworms.

 Manduca quinquemaculata---that is the one with the v shapes on the side, it has a black horn.  Commonly called the tomato hornworm.

Manduca sexta-  "robust & bright green with white diagonal striped markings on the side, 

and a small horn on the last abdominal segment (head is on the other end.")  P.S. I knew where the head was, it was right down inside one of our tomatoes!  This one is called the tobacco hornworm, said both interlap but the Manduca sexta is more common in the southeast USA, which is where we are! 

If you are ever growing tomatoes and you notice some tiny black dots underneath your plant, then look out for these hornworms! And look carefully, they are masters at camouflage. Not sure if these are everywhere in the world but they sure are here in Georgia.

Nature and needlework,,, that is what has helped my sanity! (And by needlework, I mean my crochet, I find it very relaxing.)  What has been helpful to you?

And of course there is always MUSIC!

We must have a song!  "A Kiss To Build A Dream On"...I have been humming that for a while now!   (Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein, someone I truly admire and sung by the one and only, Louis Armstrong.)  Enjoy!