The Enemy

I’m battling an enemy in my garden. I checked on the tomatoes today, and the top leaves were gone. On closer inspection, I found the cause.

I’ve always called these ugly creatures tomato worms, but they are actually Tobacco Hornworms. They like to eat tomato plants in the South. The stripes and red horn help to identify them. They look really vicious, but all they seem to want to do is eat. In a very short time they ate a lot of the foliage of my tomato plants. Some of them worked in pairs.

The garden is my domain, but I don’t deal well with creatures like these. My girliness took over, and I had to ask my husband to “relocate” them for me. We found eight eleven of them, but I suspect there might be more hiding. They’re hard to spot. One can be right in front of your nose and it blends in with the foliage. But, I imagine the tomato plants won’t last long at the rate they are eating them.

After all the tending and watching over my tomato plants this spring and summer, all I have to say to these Tobacco Hornworms is good-bye and don’t come back.