Tending the garden is more than just weeding, pruning, fertilizing, watering and harvesting. If this were all there was to it we organic gardeners could spend lots of time doing whatever else that keeps us from gardening, and when we would return to the garden there would be no unpleasant surprises.
Somehow the use of the word “unpleasant” and the word “surprise” together seems to be an oxymoron. To state unpleasantness in conjunction with “surprise” which implies an happy occurrence , could then lend to the interpretation of -an unpleasant happiness! This, like “military intelligence” or “jumbo shrimp” just isn’t doesn’t seem to be a fitting or proper description of what happened in my garden. Believe me, and perhaps someday you will experience in your garden this or another event that is nothing short of misery and believe me there is no happiness associated with it. Here is what happend.
During a major pruning a few days ago, while organizing my much neglected Spring tomato vines in preparation for their (hopefully) Fall blooming, I discovered two horned worms and fed them to the lizards with a quickness! I completed nearly 3 hours in the garden and had organized nearly 50% of my vines, I was done for the day. This morning while on my early garden visit I noticed partial defoliation of a pepper plant and took a closer look. I discovered another horned worm. The closer look disclosed that several of my pepper plants has similar damage.
After finding the first “fatty” I looked for others. I knew there had to be others. Immediately I saw no addtional units I did see the telltale scat on the ground beneath partially defoliated plants and I knew that though these critters are voracious they are not know for being distance runners, or even sprinters! There had to be others.
Where there is scat there is a horned worm fatty. So not to be put off, I got my stool and just sat in my garden, touching and preening, lifting leaves and leaning stems. Difficult to spot at first but I eventually trained my eyes and hands and minds eye and then I could see them. In the ensuing 15 minutes or so I captures 5 fatties chomping away happily on my pepper plants. They too were fed to the reptiles but not befor they agreed to provide a group photo! Click here to see them, the scat evidence and the damage.
Perhaps I should look at this as some sort of compliment to my gardening prowess, not that I found them but that I have a garden that is good enough for all of the worlds tomato horn worms to lay siege!
So I recommend some sitting in the garden, having your morning cup or a glass of juice – relaxing and observing the plants and the soil and learning the signs of friends and foe’s.
Holey Horned Worm, Batman. 5 of these guys could decimate a huge area, or a bunch of plants. Like you said, it’s not that they are sprinters, but they disguise themselves so well. I’ve only found one, but I have found about 3 dozen cabbage loopers. Small ones so far, looks like a hatching or two. I am usually pretty squeamish, but have managed to gather all my courage together to squash them with my fingers. Not fun, but it’s war out there.
I bet you take a really close look every day now….I know I do. I spend a good amount of my time each morning turning leaves, and in the evening, too. Not that I mind so much….it’s therapy for me….a quiet time to meditate peacefully on some things, and keep my perspective about others. Clarify and focus….and garden organically. Gotta love it.