first tomato worm

[songbird]

of the season. yesterday. Ma had already gone out and looked, but since i was working in the fenced gardens getting the garlic out i was right there. so i took a few moments to scan.

only saw signs on one plant, took me another three attempts to find the worm itself as it was getting later and it had already retreated down the stem.

quite a large bugger.

which makes me wonder, because i usually don't find them until they are large enough to show up by eating the tops and ends, but surely they've done a lot of damage by then to get so big. why am i not seeing them sooner?

probably because i rarely look under the plants. if i did i'd probably catch them sooner by seeing piles of droppings...

ah, well, ... :)

songbird

[T]

Death to Tomato Worms ???

:-)

[songbird]

T wrote: ...

dunno about this one, tossed it in the front yard. usually i drown them or cut them in half.

songbird

[Frank]

I spray with stuff that says you do not have to not wait for a while to harvest. You see one and know others are there. Hard to see because of their color.

[George Shirley]

I just squash them on the ground, probably make some decent fertilizer. They're the young of a moth that is very attractive. Haven't seen any here. I expect it is because there are hundreds of birds here year around and they eat a lot of flying insects. We see many birds along the fence line and others on the power wires nearby plus lots of nesting areas for the birds.

We seldom get bit by a mosquito, lots of purple martins and barn swallows around in the day and then the night shift comes in of night fling birds and bats, so far I've seen two species of bats. This winter I think I shall make a couple of martin houses and possibly a few bat houses. Designs are available on line for free.

[songbird]

George Shirley wrote: ...

we have a ton of birds around here too. we need some that like grasshoppers. wild turkeys like grasshoppers, but they don't come that close to the yard.

been so dry here this season not many mosquitoes out there at all. always enjoy watching the swallows and martins fly.

two more worms out there but i can't find them. they've not done that much damage so perhaps they are already done and buried themselves by now... didn't see any fresh droppings.

gotta get out there early today before it gets too hot again. my quota of weeds for the day is one bucket, plus i have a small area i need to weed that is covered by a metal mesh. before the weeds drop their seeds...

picked an armload of cucumbers again this morning.

songbird

[George Shirley]

It's 0810, lots of clouds, still hot as a two dollar pistol though. Heat index for today is around 109F. Picked a few more crowder peas, the new cucumber vine is full of blossoms, hopefully they will grow well. Pulled most of the older tomatoes as they had quit producing. Watering the fruit trees twice a day. Weather folk predicted a nice rain yesterday, didn't happen, got cloudy, nice cool wind, the ran was wasted on Houston city, they had floods again, Ma Nature must abhor large, giant, nasty, cities. We seldom go into Houston proper, no need, lots of malls around here.

[songbird]

George Shirley wrote: ...

we had a bit of rain yesterday. i watered the veggie gardens earlier that morning. i still asked Ma to water the trees we transplanted because it has been so hot. i don't think the rains are enough. they look good so far. :)

made another five quarts of dill pickles yesterday and Ma put some cucumbers and sliced onions and mayo in the fridge so i can have them.

our local grocery store is fairly high priced so we don't often go there for anything other than milk or a few other things. once or twice a month we have to do bulk purchases for Ma's cooking sprees and we stock up on our staples when we're out. it is a bit of a drive, but our favorite Chinese place is over that ways too.

the storm that went through yesterday was pretty strong north of us, flash flood warnings in a few places. we had enough rain to call it rain instead of a sprinkle, but i was envious of the places up there that got a good soaking.

songbird

[George Shirley]

Well, we're currently getting sporadic sprinkles of rain, lots of thunder, a little lightning, and damned little rain. I reckon we will still have to water the gardens and the fruit trees this afternoon if the rain gods fail us again. At least the temperature dropped a bit.

Miss Tilly Dawg Shirley is doing better, the antibiotics helped and the other two drugs she's on are helping too. We were really worried about her until we changed vets, the new one is much better than the old one so we're happy again.

George

[songbird]

George Shirley wrote: ...

it's moderated for us too the past few days (from high 80s or mid 90s to mid 80s). for us the nighttime temp getting low enough to open the house and cool it off at night is good as we can then avoid running the AC for most of the day (other than for a while in the morning when we close it up again to get the extra humidity out of the air).

:) yay!

songbird

[songbird]

the big green monster i pulled off the plant the other day. :)

could be the tobacco kind and not the tomato kind, but i'd have to see it again to know.

haven't found the others yet...

songbird