DD and I were taking a look at the garden yesterday. A couple of days ago, she'd found a tomato worm, but he was infested with wasp eggs, and she knows the rules on that: we encourage natural predators so we left him in order to let the eggs hatch.
Unfortunately, it appears that mama wasp missed some of the other worms in our garden. We found them yesterday and HOLY COW were they huge!!! I've never seen tomato worms this enormous -- my bugs are on steroids. Check it out:
Sadly, I discovered that the hummingbird (or "sphinx" moth) is the mama of these critters. I LIKE hummingbird moths. They're really cool to watch. **sigh**
In other news, we also found a monarch pupa on the echinacea around my well pump. At first, we were VERY excited!! It was dark, which should mean it would hatch soon... but on closer inspection, you can't see the wings through the pupa wall, which probably means it has the black death. We're leaving it for now and watching it and hoping for the best. But I do wonder how we missed finding a butterbaby on our milkweed -- we checked it quite closely.
Still, the light is fading earlier each night, I have to grab the birdfeeders and bring them in by 7:30 (so the bear doesn't get them overnight) and I don't put them out until 6 a.m. -- next week, the temps will be in the mid-70s and fall is in the air. Summer was far too short this year, and it's time for school to start (tomorrow! DD is distraught) and time to think about splitting the wood we took down last fall. Time to winterize the lawn and gardens and put away the fans.
I miss summer already.
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9 comments:
that worm is bigger than the tomatoes. That would scare me.
I don't relish the start of school because now the trains will be crowded with school kids.
Have a good Sunday.
I miss having seasons here. WE are still in the hot summer mode. I keep hoping for fall weather here in California, but so far we are still in triple digit heat.
I am sorry about all the bugs thre. That is one thing I don't miss.
Those are ginormous!!! Ugh.
Yes, summer is winding down. We picked up my SD from her summer in SC and they start school a week from Monday. I'm actually not ready for that.
Wow! Marianne they are some amazing insects! You aren't kidding about steroids. What do you feed your tomatoes anyway?
Thanks for sharing this:)
Dayana~
You're a better woman than I. All those buggy creatures creep me out and I'd be inclined to kill 'em all dead.
In the second photo, they look like Green Apple Twizzlers.
Yum!
Whoa! Those worms are HUGE! I don't like bugs myself, but realize some are necessary. It's still pretty warm here, in the 90's or thereabouts. We won't see Fall weather until late September. We'll be starting school probably next week.
I hope you've had a good day!
LOL - I'm eagerly awaiting our summer. Wow, those are big caterpillars. We don't grow them that big down here.
Good god those are huge worms!!
Im ready for fall, it has been hotter and more humide than usual.
Driving to work this am was not a treat! Lord everyone all over the place. There is a highschool right in front of my apt complex, and they just built an elementery school down the sidestreet from the highschool. Traffic is going to be worse than before sigh.
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