I don't know about you, but one of my favorite summer delights is delicious home grown tomatoes. After experiencing some difficulties with garden pests such as groundhogs and deer, I decided to grow a patio tomato on my deck this summer. I was so proud of my beautiful plant. Lush and green,with many flowers it was one of the healthiest plants I'd ever seen. I babied this plant, fertilized it, watered it, and yes even talked to it.
I am sure you can guess where this is going. To make a long story short, I went away to the Berkshires for 4 days leaving my beautiful tomato laden plant at home. The last thing I did was tie it to the stakes because it had so many tomatoes on it, I did not want it to fall over and break.
When I returned from my trip the plant was devastated as you can see in the photos. Hideous creatures, tomato hornworms, attacked and devoured this plant in 2 days. I know it was done in a day or two because my son checked on the plants and told me that overnight all the leaves and most of the tomatoes were gone! Apparently these creatures are very hard to see until the enter the stage where they eat everything at a sickening rate just before they emerge as giant moths.
They will also attack potato , pepper and eggplant. Take a look at your plants today and make sure there are no caterpillars crawling around or you too may have a shocking discovery.
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