Ok, so night time isn’t the best time to take pictures of the garden, but that’s when I had a moment. Like many of my friends I have been fighting with squash bugs and hornworms and poor soil and weeds and all the general garden woes plus the extra annoying New Mexico garden woes as well. You can see I have one tomato plant that has curly top and one that is overgrowing its cage. I have some others too, but its about 50/50 for now. My one tomato plant that isn’t a cherry tomato that is left sustained some pretty good hornworm damage. I think it will pull through.
Every day I go out and remove squash bugs and hornworms from my plants to keep them alive. It’s a battle, but as I heard this morning on Bioneers nature never gives up. I guess I’m a part of nature so I shouldn’t either. These little plants are kind of like Job I guess. Their covered in boils and festering, they have diseases and pests, but they don’t give up. They continue to try and fulfill their responsibility. I love the produce and I guess I enjoy the challenge too so I keep gardening. Next year I’ll definitely be planting marigolds, basel, and petunias (all bug deterrents) among everything else.
Too bad it isn’t very cost effective when you have to fight so hard to get the good produce.
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I make sure to keep the bird feeder that is right next to my tomatoes stocked with birdseed when it’s tomato season. Works like a charm! It draws in tons of birds, then they decide they’d like a tasty hornworm snack to go with the birdseed. Several years running I got almost no tomato harvest due to total hormworm devastation, but the last two years with the birdseed, hardly any problem whatsoever. I see some caterpillar droppings now and then and I know the birds got another one.
(side note: hey sorry you didn’t like our police beat thread
but good luck with your tomatoes!–the plant in the background looks super happy)
UPDATE: So I slacked off on the birdseed and for the last 5 days or so the feeder has been empty. Just found a HUGE hornworm who had already badly damaged one of my plants (of course because he is huge he had eaten quite a lot).
On the bright side, my kids thought the hornworm was the coolest thing ever.
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