Tomato, Potato...who cares?

 At daybreak, I was out in the garden.  Just a few days with no rain and the plants looked a mite withered.  Even a few of the potato and tomato leaves were turning brown.  Since it had started as a hot day with the temperature at 84 as early as 5am, I had decided to pull out all the stops and set up the sprinkler.  Those plants needed a good soaking and I had too many other chores to attend to stand out there with the water hose.  As soon as I was satisfied that the sprinkler was working correctly, I turned to head back inside. Uh, oh!  Something had munched about a half of potato plant!  Now what?

  I stared at the plant.  My eyes did not want to discern bug from leaf until finally I noticed that one "stem" was a lot fatter than the others. Also, under this fat stem, there was some telltale caterpillar poop!  A tomato worm eating my potatoes!   Well, where there is one, there will be many.  The search was on and I was determined to salvage what plants I could.  Michael and I found nine fat worms all munching on the tomatoes.  The first was the only rogue of the bunch.  Somehow that one had a taste for potato leaves so perhaps he was a potato worm! Just kidding.  In reality, these are tobacco worms not true tomato worms.  To me, they all look alike but several years ago, I was informed that tomato worms have black "horns" on their posterior.  This one had the red horn of the tobacco worm.  Not that it makes one iota of difference as they all love to munch my plants.  Tomato worms...tobacco worms..who cares?  They had to go.

  One good thing about finding the worms on my plants...they looked healthy.  Usually, I have no worries about having healthy garden pests but at least it shows that my plants are pure and not doused with chemicals.  Still, I now have a choice.  Do I spray for the caterpillars or do I leave them to become moths.  Michael and I hand-picked the caterpillars.  After carefully checking all plants in the garden, we toted the critters to the Bayou and tossed them into the water.  There a redfish or flounder could have a free meal and my garden would not be eaten and turned to caterpillar poop!

  I am also happy to report that the sprinkler system did its job well. After just about thirty minutes or so of watering, a nice roll of thunder shook the house! I hurried to turn off the water hose. The rest of the day was spent indoors with heavy rain soaking the ground!  Yep, that is the best sprinkler system there is!