Tomato Horned Worms

Do you know what this moth is?

This moth that was at my front door on 8-8-14.  It is what a tomato horned worm turns into.  This moth stayed here for about a day or a day and a half.

Here is the picture that Hubby took.

Here is an even closer view that he took.

This morning I went outside and this is want I saw on the ground.

Here is a close-up.  I sent these pictures to my husband and asked him if he thought it was from the squirrels.  It is much smaller than what I see in the backyard, but I didn't know what else had left it.

We started talking about the droppings in the front yard again.  Hubby forgot to look when he got home from work.  He went outside to look and found more that was green.  He started looking closely at the plant:

This is what he found.  These are the first tomato horned worms I have seen at my house.  After realizing what the dropping on the ground were I think I saw the same droppings 4 or 5 years ago.

Oh look another one.

Now there are three.

A close look at the plant shows the leaves are gone.

Several branches have all the leaves stripped off.

He put them in the center of the cul-de-sac to see what they would do.

I am at one side of the cul-de-sac and I zoomed in a little.  I can see them wandering around, but the camera didn't show them without zooming in some.  We watched them for about 10 minutes and they seemed to be pacing around in circles and back and forth.  The grandkids got here about 40 minutes later and we went outside right away so the kids could see them.  We couldn't find them anywhere.

Here is the only tomato they were feasting on.  While looking for another tomato that may have been eaten I found:

This little guy.  It looks like a baby Grasshopper.  I was hoping it was a Praying Mantis, but I couldn't tell until I got a look at the picture.  It kept running down the plant and we tried to get a picture.

Here is an overhead view of the tomato plants.

See the lost Hydrangea in the center?  This is what can happen when you plant in compost that has uncooked tomato seeds in it.  Tomato seeds are hard to kill in compost.  It doesn't get hot enough usually.  The seeds will germinate when they get a good amount of water.  I left them growing just to see what they would look like.  I don't know if they came from store bought tomatoes or home grown tomatoes last year.

Saving Seeds and Tomato Blossom End Rot

The yellow flowers from this broccoli plant have turned to brown seed pods.

I put a small paper bag over the top of the broccoli plant; then folded the top of one side of the bag towards the other side of the bag until it was snug around the plant stock. I used a binder clip to hold the folded bag in place.

Gently press the plant over to help keep the seed from falling out of the bag.  Do not break the plant stock. The plant will fall over more with time.  I have the edge of a small pallet holding the plant in place. The pallet is also there to keep the quail from digging holes in the moist soil.  The piece of window screen at the top of the picture is covering garlic I planted that some critter was digging up and eating the top edges of.

Here is the same broccoli plant a week later.The bag covered plant has fallen towards the ground a little more.  Tiny bunches of broccoli have grown and started turning to flowers also.

This is the lettuce from the grandkids garden.  The lettuce leaves are almost dead, but the yellow flowers have turned into white puffy balls.

I covered it with a small paper bag; rolled the edge in; and secured it with the binder clip also.

Gently press the plant to one side to hold the seeds in and be very careful not to break the plant stock.

This bag now touches the ground a week after putting the bag over the lettuce seeds.  I don't worry about keeping the bag dry when I water.  It doesn't seem to affect the seeds.

Here is one of my heirloom paste tomatoes that had blossom end rot.  Saving tomato seed is not an easy process, so this year I am going to try saving them like my friend, Bruce, does.  He puts the very ripe tomato in a bag and lets it completely rot and dry out.  Then he closes the bag and stores the seeds for planting next year.  I left the center top of this sandwich bag open (otherwise it will never dry out) and it is sitting in my window sill.

I planted 5 tomato plants in tubs.  The plants look great, but the first 6 or 8 tomatoes had blossom end rot.   Watch for Tomato Horned Worms.  I heard on the garden talk show Saturday that these critters are starting to show up.

Here is a picture of blossom end rot.  I forgot to take a picture of my tomatoes with this, so I got this picture off of the Internet.

I went to my favorite nursery in Sparks that just reopened and talked to Mark.  He told me that tomatoes planted in pots have a problem with blossom end rot, because they do not get the calcium out of the soil like plants in the ground do.  Too much nitrogen  makes blossom end rot a bigger problem.  I mulched all of my tomatoes in the pots and in the ground with a thick layer of grass.  Nitrogen overdose for the tomatoes in pots.
This bottle only makes 8 gallons.  It can be sprayed on the plants and on the soil.
Blossom end rot can affect tomatoes, bell peppers, melons and squashes.  This is my first year of having it happen to more than one or two tomatoes. I was able to get two watering barely out of this bottle for my 5 plants and so far the new tomatoes look great.