Look at the top of the tomato cage in the middle of the picture. I know it's hard to see what plants are which, especially since a watermelon has no business mingling with a tomato plant, but apparently tomato plants are very desirable. There are no leaves left on the actual tomato plant! All the leaves you see in this picture are from the watermelon plant (or the beans, or basil, or peppers, or potatoes. Oh yes and some weeds). The light green stems at the top are leftovers from the caterpillars which have descended upon them.Of course, when I showed the kids, they were very excited and came running to look; to pry them off the stems and play with them. I felt a little sorry for the bugs, but secretly I thought they were getting their just desserts after their large main course. One "small green leaf" indeed! I hope that night they had a tummyache. TSK!
These caterpillars are very hungry and very piggy. They have left droppings all over my garden. Excuse me, but my name is not Oswald; I'm not planting a separate tomato plant purely for the slug/caterpillar enjoyment.
They found 4 caterpillars and named them Felicity, Katrina, Matthew, and Maxwell. Only Katrina remained in the bucket though. Either they have crawled off in search of more plants to eat, or some bird found a plump and tasty supper. I'm torn- I do like caterpillars, and even more, butterflies. On the other hand, am I the one who should be breeding them?
8 comments:
Those caterpillars are huge and juicy! I don't want to get into my ignorance about this topic, but would you actually be breeding them or just keeping them?
Perhaps breeding is the wrong word, since I'm pretty sure they're not the ones laying the eggs. However, this afternoon, we found SEVEN...
But really, I don't think we're capable of keeping a pet, even if we wanted to.
I think those caterpillars are extremely cute. OH FAWICITY!!!
Those caterpillars are called tomato horn worms. They are extremely voracious and damaging to tomatoes, and will eat your entire crop unless you kill them. Better look them up on the internet for how to do so!
Whenever I see a de-leafed tomato plant, I feel sick. I'm not squeamish about bugs in general, but I HATE HORNWORMS. As soon as I saw your leafless tomato plant picture, I knew what had caused it. I don't know what it is about them that makes me hate them so much except maybe what your mom says- they are destroyers!
Oh, and nice job with the melons. Looks like you've got a nice-sized one growing there.
Those are monsters! I've never seen caterpillars that fat.
Great looking melon there. We'll post our melons, we got 2, about the size of a large cantaloupe.
Holy Crow those are biggest, fattest caterpillars I have ever seen! And although I love to watch caterpillars, I would be ticked if they ate all my tomato plant because I LOVE garden fresh tomatoes way, way more!
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