Yuck!

On this morning's inspection tour of the garden I noticed that one of the tomato plants looked a bit ratty on top. Stems were bare and leaves were missing where there should be new growth. When I first started gardening here, I had no idea what caused it. Now I know. Tomato horn worms! Or, tobacco horn worms! These are tobacco horn worms I just found out because their "horn" is red rather than black. They are the larval stage of the sphinx or hawk moths, aka hummingbird moths, which are desert pollinators so I should not be too hard on them.

But those worms are disgusting! They seem to grow to finger size in a day or two and they can defoliate a tomato plant in short order. The worst thing is that they are very well camouflaged so it takes some persistence to find them. The first year I encountered them I picked them off by the dozens. At that time I did not have chickens, so I fed them to the roadrunner with whom I became very popular. But now the hens benefit and they make short order of them. Do not believe that hens are vegetarians, they are sharks in feathers.

So the Pacific Northwest has disgusting slugs, and the desert has horn worms.