Frass frass and more frass: Tomato fruitworm
A month ago I had issues with squash vine borers (the linkback to post is here if you missed it) and mildly complained that insect sh*t has to have its own name, “frass”.
Well, today I have more frass for you.
I’m catching up with my family on vacation tomorrow, so this morning I picked the 36 Brandywine tomatoes on the vine that had started ripening to a reasonable degree (to take with me). In the process I pulled one with a pink/green top that I discovered to have a worm hole in it, complete with the contractor/occupant in residence.
So, for the sake of science and garden pest identification, I dissected the fruit and exposed the evil teenage moth, aka “tomato fruitworm” aka “corn earworm” aka “sorghum headworm” aka “cotton bollworm”. Like his cousin previously featured, this disgusting little pest wallows in his own “frass” while he is eating.
Google searches for “tomato eating worms” bring up hundreds of links about another green caterpillar, the “tomato hornworm”, which is gigantic (3-4″) and devours tomato foliage in a flash. It is a monster caterpillar, the largest most people would ever see outside.
OK, so why confuse the issue and bring up this pest?
Because the search also pulled up (quite prominently I might add) a link to a video titled
“Hot Chick Eating Juicy Tomato Worm – Hmm yummy and crunchy”.
Well I now have seen something more disgusting that a tomato fruitworm wallowing in its own frass. The giant caterpillar she devoured was definitely a tomato hornworm, as big as my little finger. At least she wasn’t doing drugs or hosting an interactive webcam site from her bedroom, right?
To save any of you who are brave enough the trouble, click here to see the hot chick devouring the hornworm.
By the way, I can see the number of clicks on the link but not who clicks it, and am curious what % of people who read this post who also click the link. So now everyone who is reading this is officially part of a social experiment.
And yes, she was kind of cute, but I can’t comfortably call her “hot” as she is likely younger than my lovely daughter.
Cicadas and the Killers II
The killers! They are here!
What am I talking about? The cicada killers I posted about here last month.
The first ones are in the back year for the first time.
What a poser –
Arikara giant
Hierloom arikara sunflowers sprout into all sizes shapes and flower head counts (have not been hybridized into a uniform genetic profile that give mostly nearly identically flowers). Some are small, some have single blooms. some have mutliple blooms and some are just plain BIG.
In fact, this one is just about almost nearly as tall as a power pole:
Asparagus, Mid July
(First year bed)
The crowns seem to have re-awakened
I thought things would be winding down by now; in the hot dry stretch we went through in late June, new spears were rare. After some substantial summer thunderstorm soakings over the last couple of weeks, the bed has come out of dormancy. The quality seems to have improved as well; the July spears are superior to the June spears you can see in this picture. They are the spindly fully developed ones out of the same crown.
Note to self: watering is important to first year asparagus beds.
That’s all. 😉
Grandparents & gardening wisdom
Several people i talk to about gardening mention what they remember their grandparents doing in the garden and then preserving the harvest.
The generation (let’s say old enough to remember the great depression and WWII rationing and earlier) mostly got it right. They didn’t spend money they didn’t have, they lived within their means and they always tried to put back for a rainy day. They knew by experience that things didn’t always work out and they knew they were responsible for their own well being. And they all seemed to have a garden, someone in the family knew how to can and the “root cellar” didn’t get strange looks when mentioned. There were/are exceptions, but generally speaking I’d say this is more true than not.
Funny how most of the people around me have forgotten about this-
We are spoiled by fresh produce flown and trucked in from around the world, always available around the corner at the large grocery store of our choice. Yeah, it will be there forever, why should we know how to do this stuff? Monsanto feeds the world now so we don’t have to worry right?
Probably still a good thing to know how to do.
I didn’t hear this recently from my grandparents, they have long since passed away.
But I know it is still true, this wise old tomato told me so.
Do I need a new lima bean sheller?
One of my compost piles
Lima bean shells on it
Lima bean plants sprouting from it
?
You tell me.
😉
I think I’ll keep her anyway.
Well House D-Day
The old house is down, the new on is up.
Rain and pain (Surprise! It was more work that I thought it would be.)
Sweat stains show on the new roof (top) ; I wallowed on this side in the hot sun before the thunderstorms interrupted (below)
A slide show of the whole weekend is posted below. FIL and BIL were a huge help; if you pay attention you will catch SIL trying to escape as the camera came out.
Lots of work is left to do before winter, including finishing the front, insulating and shoring up around the foundation a bit. .
Gourdzilla lives
Sir Issac Newton was not a dummy. If he ever grew gourds, I’m quite certain that he would not suspend them up a top heavy wind sail of a tower, and if for some reason he found his gourds up such a tower, he would immediately anchor the whole assembly with at least three stout ground lines, not one.
After the monsoon passed (a hour of sideways wind and rain first from the north and then strongly from the south), I found that the tower had not only toppled, it had partially uprooted the bed box, including a piece of rebar anchor.
I attached another line then tugged and grunted until it righted. A 3rd line was needed to true it up a little better and after a few minutes it looked almost vertical again:
After climbing a ladder and inspecting from a different angle, I understand a little better why the tower was doomed. There are several nice gourds up in the top, but until now I had not seen the two massive lighter green monsters perched above. I’ve zoomed in on one of them in the insert:
Gourdzilla lives, and he has a twin to boot.
Houston, we have a problem
Uh, maybe two lines to secure the tower would have been better than one.
You think?
😦
Behind cohutt's fence 