I’ve had a lot of shit in my garden over the years, but this asshole takes the cake. I’d read about them in various publications over time, but have never had any but the smallest inchworm grace my garden. You know, the super cute and tiny little green fellow that you can hardly see against the stem or leaf, and that probably starred in his own Eric Carle story. Oh, wait…
Tomato Hornworms are anathema to your tomato plant. Just one or two can decimate this winter’s spaghetti sauce if you miss its presence.
My mother is not much of a gardener, but her burgeoning skills with a gifted Bonzai tree have encouraged her, and for the past couple of years, she has also hosted a potted tomato plant in her backyard.
This summer she told me she was having the most terrible luck with her tomato plant. She recruited my brother-in-law, and investigated the trouble. Here’s what they found:
I reeled in horror at what I saw! It’s hyyuuggeee!!! Ewww! Mom hadn’t found out what it was yet and I couldn’t possibly wait for an identification, so I did what any good gardener does in a moment of horror: Google.
To be honest, I kinda figured I already knew what it was. I’ve heard the stories. I’ve never seen one or even looked up a picture, but the Tomato Hornworm’s reputation precedes it. It took me about 10 seconds to know what had eaten Mom’s plant.
Technically, this one is a Tobacco Hornworm. The Tomato version has a green horn and V-shaped stripes or something. Whatever. The point is, this thing is a killer and must be stopped!! Or at least moved to somewhere that it won’t murder tomatoes.
By the time Mom found that shithead, it was already too late. Her poor tomato plant was decimated, and although technically alive, can not possibly produce a crop before winter. What an asshole. (The hornworm, not Mom.)
Okay, so for what it’s worth, the Tomato and Tobacco Hornworms turn in to really pretty moths – the Tomato variety actually played a starring role in the classic film Silence of the Lambs. No, really. Google it if you don’t believe me.
Fortunately, I’ve never seen one of these assholes in MY garden. Whew!
After returning from a weeklong visit to Mom’s – where I first-hand witnessed the devastation to her tomato plant – I couldn’t wait to visit my Happy Place and see how the garden fared under my partner’s gardensitting hand.
He’d done a stupendous job staying on top of harvesting and collecting, and even hand-watered my faltering potatoes.
Everything was looking wonderful; predictably my hunny had done a terrific job while I was gone. After a week away, I carefully inspected everyone, looking for growth, moisture levels, health, and pesticles. While looking down to avoid an obstacle, I noticed some shit.
To the untrained eye, it probably looks like some dirt bits or something. But after you’ve seen enough pesticles, you start to recognize shit from shinola. This kind of looks like mouse scat, but it’s too square. Mouse shit is oblong. This shit is squared off. Yes, I looked that closely.
Well, the shit don’t fall far from the pesticle, so I used my physics training to look 90 degrees from the perpendicular of the droppings. Basically, I looked straight up from the shit. Oh shit.
(Otherwise known as a goddam Tobacco Fucking Horn Worm.)
Goddambloodytomatosuckingpieceofshit!! Aaaagggggg! Eeeewwwww!! It was hovering over my head while I was investigating its shit!!! Disgusting wanker!!
Well, once I made sure that every one of my neighbors knows my extensive repertoire of profanity, I did what any brave gardener does when confronted by a monster. I called out my 8-year old.
After the shock of witnessing such an enormous beast committing herbicide right in front of my eyes, me and the kid got down to a removal plan. Although my little Danger (yes, that’s really her nickname, and if you met her you’d know why) was keen to go grab it and hug it and squeeze it and love it for ever and ever, I was NOT keen for her to touch the thing, so I made her put on some rubber gloves first. She went right up to the beast and attempted to pluck it off. But NO. This little fucker was vacuum sealed on to the stem. Danger tried every way she could think of without squashing the bastard, and we finally gave up.
I thought I was going to have to break out some nasty chemicals and melt away the little fuckwad into slime like a slug in salt. But no, there had to be a better way. The little green hobgoblin was attached to one of the topmost branches of the my SuperSweet 100s, an indeterminate tomato variety notorious for taking over any tomato patch with its rapid growth and long-ass branches. This plant would never miss that little tip of branch, especially since the hornworm had eaten all of the foliage and half of the fruit from it already.
So Danger and I cut the branch off the plant. And we tossed the branch over the fence of my yard. We are very brave.
I know, and I’m not proud of it. I know I could have disposed of it some other way, but I don’t want to kill it! It’s huge, and would make a huge mess and nightmare-inducing sound if we squashed it. But that caterpillar is never going to be able to find this plant again from outside the yard, AND, it might become a delightful meal for one of the families of birds nearby. Or it can just fucking find somewhere else to live and something else to eat; I gave it a chance. But it will GET. OFF. OF. MY. LAWN. (or garden, in this case)
Whew! Well, that’s that.
So today I was out harvesting my plentiful tomatoes (They’re doing great now after some treatment; see What’s Wrong With the Tomatoes?). I haven’t been in the garden in two days, and at this time of year (August is harvest time! Every day!) that could be critical. The powdery mildew could get out of control in just two days, the Japanese beetles could finish off a whole blackberry cane or several pole bean plants, or a delightful infestation of YouNameIt pesticle could move in and take over. The point is, I was spending some time harvesting and observing.
Honestly, although there’s some issues in my Happy Place, overall, today it was looking alright and there’s no new Japanese beetles to drown, so I’m feeling good. It sucks to be a murderer every time I go in the garden, so a day without Japanese fucking Beetles is a good day.
I was filling my harvest basket with beautiful green beans, a couple of pickling cucumbers, the first ripe Thai chili of the season, a zucchini, two Anaheim peppers, a few strawberries, and several jalapenos until the basket was full up! After emptying the basket of the first load, I came back out ready to fill it with tomato love.
My fertilizer treatments of calcium and phosphorus made all the difference, and the ‘maters have been coming fast and tasty!
I made my way down the line from the Romas to the San Marzanos to the SuperSweet 100s. And there I noticed something odd:
SOMEBODY has been eating my tomatoes. Without asking my permission, and without even taking them off the vine! My children might be feral, but even THEY have the courtesy to remove them from the plant before noshing. Dufuq?
Oh no. I recognize this. I’ve only ever had one pesticle that actually ATE my tomatoes. Fucking asshat.
Sigh. Another one. I know you might be wondering, is that the one you threw over the fence, Pottymouth? No. No, I don’t believe it is. There’s pretty much no way it could find its way back. I don’t think. Plus, although still uncomfortably large, this one is a smidge smaller than the last. And its stripes are not as pronounced. Ugg, whatever! Fortunately, like the last one, it clearly hasn’t been there long because there were only a few leaves and those two half tomatoes missing. Like before, I lopped off the branch and hurled it over the fence.
We have some lovely birds of prey nearby; there’s even an American Bald Eagle preserve just a few miles away. Last year we had a family of Cooper Hawks nest in the tree just over the fence where I threw my not-friend. Plus, we have all the usual suburban birds, and a healthy population of traveling birds like ducks and geese from the pond across the street. Point is, there’s a whole ecosystem of modern-day T-Rexes looking for grubs just over that fence. Soup’s on fellas!!!
The Pottymouth Gardener 