Icky Invasion

A nicer picture from bygone days...

This has been a really long week for me workwise. And with much less garden these days, I haven't spent as much time in it. Though this happened pretty much overnight, like it did before. Only 10 times worse. Or I guess, only 8 times worse? No, definitely 10 (math is not my strong suit, ha ha!) What am I talking about? The scourge of tomato growers worldwide.

Tomato worms!  Eeek!

Wednesday (after having been in the garden Tuesday in the late afternoon and all seemed fine. Or as fine as my garden gets at the moment, lol) I went out to water/check on stuff. 

Imagine my horror when poor Goldie was almost completely shorn of leaves!! And a heckuva lot of stems bitten off, too! 

Upon closer inspection I found not one, not two, but SIX (yes - *6*!!) tomato worms on *one* plant! 

Well, those things are so dang icky, I sure as heck wasn't going to touch them. Neither was I going to step on them. (Seriously - who wants bug guts on the bottom of their shoe? *shiver*). So what did I do? Probably a little "overkill" (haha!) but - I cut off the particular stem the worm was on (there were no leaves left anyway). Once the nasty bugger hit the ground, I smacked it with a stick until it was good and smashed.

ICK. YUCK. GROSS.

Feel free to add to the list of descriptive adjectives. Just disgusting all the way around.

I found one on George, two on Seymour, and another on Henrietta. They hadn't managed to do as much damage, which was something. 

Today, all tomato plants appeared worm free. Gonna get out there tomorrow and apply more diatamaceous earth, cut off any dead stems, etc. There are still tomatoes on all the plants, even poor Goldie. She has a couple of leaves and one grouping of tomatoes left. So keep your fingers crossed. 

*sigh* The trials and tribulations of being a homesteader.  ;-)

So - update tomorrow, and another postcard! And who knows what all other mayhem, hehe.

:)