The Dreaded Tomato Hornworm

Now that my tomato plants have been planted, it won’t be long before the dreaded tomato hornworms begin to show up and start busily munching away. Tomato hornworms can also be a problem for plants related to tomatoes such as eggplant, peppers and potatoes. One day in the not too distant future, I’ll trek out to my veggie garden and quickly notice the tell-tale signs of these hungry invaders – the munched foliage at the ends of the branches, and not far below the missing leaves will be the droppings (caterpillar poo).

I'll start looking for the nasty green worms, which takes a while because they blend in perfectly with the stems and foliage. I try to catch them early on so there is minimal damage to the plants. Last year, I found four hornworms, a couple of smallish ones and two rather large ones, early in the summer. The small worms were only about an inch long, which means the eggs they came from had just recently hatched. They have ravenous appetites and eat so much very quickly that they grow fast. If I had taken a couple days longer to detect them, they could have easily been the size of a finger, and perhaps devoured much of the plant they were on. Later in the summer, I found many many more – it was an especially bad year for them. I did find most them while they were on the small side, so damage to my plants was minimal.

How do you recognize a tomato hornworm? How do you manage them? Here’s a little information from UC Davis’s Web site (http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/GARDEN/VEGES/PESTS/hornworm.html):

Tomato hornworms of all sizes have a distinctive horn at the rear end. If you find them early on they are small, but mature caterpillars are very large – up to 4 inches long. Tomato hornworms are likely to be the largest caterpillars you will see in the vegetable garden. Their striping pattern makes them hard to spot despite their size. Large, black droppings on the ground beneath tomato plants or on the leaves below where they are feeding usually indicate the presence of hornworms. The adult moths that are responsible for these worms have a wingspan up to five inches.

Damage by hornworm larvae (the worm/caterpillar) is usually most common in midsummer, but there may also be a small population peak in the late summer. Infestations tend to be more severe in warm inland areas such as the High Desert. The larval form is the only stage that causes damage. The eggs are laid singly on leaves. The larvae feed and grow, and then burrow into the soil to pupate. The adult/moth develops over the winter and emerges and the cycle continues. Entire leaves and small stems may be consumed by the larvae. Large pieces from green or ripe fruit may also be chewed.

To manage hornworms, handpick or snip hornworms with shears. Hornworm eggs can be attacked by Trichogramma and the larvae by Hyposoter exigua – two types of parasitic wasps – which can be purchased through various catalogs and released into the garden. There are also several general predators such as praying mantids to help keep populations under control. Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) or spinosad are effective against smaller larvae. Discing or rototilling after harvest destroys the pupae in soil and helps prevent adults from developing.

I tend to handpick the hornworms, and then feed them to my chickens. It is important to keep looking and not assume there are only one or two. It is best to look for them early in the morning, because they tend to hide out during the heat of the day. Look along the stems and under the leaves, especially near the ends of the branches and near where damage has been found. If you notice the droppings, look above that area. Tomato hornworms used to scare me so I would snip them with shears, but the disgusting green goo they leave behind is not very appealing. I eventually learned to put on a pair of gardening gloves and simply pick the worms off the plant. Chickens enjoy feasting on tomato hornworms, so if you happen to have chickens, it’s a great way to dispose of the worms once you have removed them from your plants. If you notice the eggs or pupa (cocoon), destroy them before they develop into the dreaded hornworm.

Beneficial Insects and Other “Bugs”

Adult Lady Bug

Lady Bug Larvae

Now that the weather is warming up a bit, you may start to notice a few more “bugs” showing up in your landscape or garden. But, do you know which of these bugs are actually bad, and which ones are beneficial?

Insects and other creatures can be a desirable part of the landscape and garden because they help to reduce the numbers of plant damaging pests. Some of them are predators, while others might be parasites. Sometimes, we might recognize the adult insect, but are unaware that there is a larval stage, or what the larval stage looks like – this is certainly the case with lady bugs.

We all know what a lady bug looks like – red, sometimes yellow, with or without black spots. They eat lots of aphids and other small soft-bodied insects. But, did you know that their larvae are even more ravenous? Do you even know what they look like? Lady bug larvae are small, maybe up to about a half-inch in length, “alligator-shaped,” and black with orange spots.

Another common beneficial insect is the green lacewing. They are very delicate, light green insects with rather large lacey-looking wings. Their tiny whitish eggs are laid singly on the end of a hair-like filament, and can be found on leaves. I commonly find them in my apple trees. The very hungry larval stage resembles a tiny alligator and is usually a pale color with darkish markings.

Praying mantids are another somewhat helpful insect. They are usually two to four inches long at maturity and are usually yellowish, green or brown. Their front legs fold in a “prayer-like” manner. The immature mantids look like tiny versions of the adult. They will eat any insect that may cross their path, even the good ones, which is why they are only somewhat helpful.

Spiders, although creepy to many people, are also beneficial because of all the insects they snare in their webs. Of course, we don’t want to keep the dangerous spiders such as the Black Widow or Brown Recluse in our gardens, but if you determine that the spiders you see are harmless to people and pets, keep them around for insect control.

There are numerous beneficial “bugs” in the garden that help pollinate such as bees and hoverflies. Hoverflies, which resemble bees, are often seen hovering or nectaring at flowers – the adults feed mainly on nectar and pollen, while the larvae eat a wide range of foods. Depending on the species, the larvae may eat decaying plant and animal matter in the soil or in ponds and streams. Or they prey on aphids, thrips, and other plant-sucking insects.

Other beneficial insects are parasitic, mainly tiny wasps or flies that lay eggs either in or on specific host insects. The eggs hatch and as the larvae develop, they consume their hosts.

If you don’t have these beneficial creatures in your yard naturally, they can be purchased at nurseries and through garden catalogs, and then released according to the package directions.

There are a number of books on insects that might help you to identify the different damaging and beneficial species. Among my favorites are “Natural Enemies Handbook: The Illustrated Guide to Biological Pest Control” by Mary Louise Flint and Steve H. Dreistadt; “IPM for Gardeners: A Guide to Integrated Pest Management” by Raymond A. Cloyd, Philip L. Nixon and Nancy R. Pataky; and “Garden Insects of North America” by Whitney Cranshaw. Each of these can be purchased/ordered through local bookstores or at amazon.com.

A great website to help identify beneficial "bugs" is  http://ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/NE/index.html

Beware of Snakes in the Garden

Yikes! Snakes in the garden? I don't think about it much since I've never actually seen a live snake in my yard, or neighborhood for that matter, and I have lived in the High Desert for nearly 35 years. I have seen them in Big Bear and numerous other places, but not at home. Certainly I hear about them frequently enough, but until a couple of conversations with associates at my former place of employment, and a more recent question that came in my email, I hadn't actually taken the idea as seriously as I should have.

One associate, who lives in the Baldy Mesa area of the High Desert, was out in her tomato garden when she noticed that her dog was acting strangely. Upon further investigation, she discovered that the source of the problem was a snake stuck in the netting she had placed around the tomato plant to keep out hungry squirrels and bunnies. She noticed it had a pattern in its scales, but fortunately, knowing snakes well enough, she determined it was a gopher snake - not a rattler. Just the same, it could have just as easily been a rattlesnake. She carefully snipped the netting to loosen its grip on the snake and it eventually slithered away. If this had been a poisonous species, getting as close would not have been so wise.

Another associate mentioned that she has snake issues on her property out in Pinon Hills. She said they need to keep all of their trees and shrubs trimmed up so that there are no branches and leaves laying close to the ground. It would also be good to put a mesh fence around her raised bed gardens.

The recent email was from someone in the “Victorville area” that wanted to put in a garden, but is extremely afraid of snakes, rodents and bugs. Hopefully this can help her at least avoid the snake issues.

What can you do to keep snakes out of the garden?  This Web site - http://coopext.colostate.edu/4dmg/Pests/snakesin.htm - offers the following ideas:

Construct a snake-proof fence around your garden. A snake-proof fence can be made of heavy galvanized screen, about three feet wide with a quarter-inch mesh. The fence should slant away from the garden at a thirty-degree angle and be buried six inches below the soil surface. Remove or closely mow any vegetation that may be near the fence.

Make your garden and landscape unattractive to snakes by eliminating any shelter or hiding places that may seem inviting to them. Remove logs, boards, rocks, and other debris that may be lying on the ground. High grass and other vegetation should be mowed closely or removed in order to control insects and rodents that are attractive to snakes. Firewood should be stacked at least one foot off of the ground.

Another Web site (http://www.allaboutlawns.com/grass-types/keeping-snakes-out-of-your-garden-and-off-the-lawn.php) includes these suggestions:

Keep your garden and lawn inhospitable to snakes. It is impossible to keep snakes from passing through your garden, but it is possible to make sure they don't stop and make a home there.

Watch out for mulch piles. Snakes enjoy snug, warm environments for reproducing and living. If you have a big mulch pile, snakes (and rodents) may try to make a home there. Try to make sure you mix it up as often as possible. You can also build the pile in a wire cage so that air and water circulates through it, making it more inhospitable for long-term living.

Trim small trees and shrubberies. Gardeners encourage that you make sure that the lower limbs on small trees and shrubberies should be a couple of feet above the ground. If branches dangle to the ground, snakes and rodents will make a happy home at the foot of your garden trees.

Cut your lawn. Tall grass can become a home for snakes. Happily, most lawn grass will have trouble getting tall enough, but landscaping grass like fountain grass or pampas grass, will provide a perfect home for snakes if not trimmed or controlled properly.

Whatever you choose to do to keep snakes away, it is still a good idea to approach the garden with care, and look carefully before you reach into a tomato plant or any other plant. You never know what might be lurking in your cozy garden environment.

Many Reasons for Thinning Fruit

 

My Babcock Peach Tree
in full bloom

My fruit and nut trees - peaches, pears, apples and almonds - are looking like they will be absolutely loaded with fruit this year! We did not experience a late cold snap (not yet anyway) to kill the blossoms, and the bees did a great job with pollination. This is great news, but it means a bit more work ahead to ensure quality, large-sized fruit rather than getting lots of inferior small-sized fruit.

Clusters of apple blossoms.
The apples will need a lot of thinning
when they begin to develop.

Thinning the fruit is the best way to get larger-sized fruits. There are also a number of other reasons for thinning fruit. The following are a few points to consider:

Baby peaches before thinning

Baby peaches after thinning

Size: If you thin, you can get good- sized fruit. If you don't, you'll get undersized fruit. Perhaps you will have a greater number of fruit if you fail to thin, but you will probably not like the ratio of pulp to pit. Here's a handy two-part rule: When it comes to larger fruits such as peaches or apples, if you can touch two fruits with one hand, you are allowing your tree to bear too much fruit. By following this rule, the plant will produce the largest fruit possible up to its genetic potential.

Sweetness: The tree is best able to develop the necessary sugars and therefore sweetness, by putting its energy into a smaller number of fruit. Although you will get fewer individual fruits per tree, they will be of much higher quality.

To avoid limb breakage: Limbs overloaded with fruit often break and fall onto the ground. They do so in a random and uncontrolled way that usually tears bark, thus exposing the tree to disease and insect attacks. If the limb can't bear the weight of the fruit, thin the fruit. Don't prop up the limb, which hurts the tree in the long run.

To avoid disease: If wind and air can't go through the tree and circulate between the fruit you have an increased potential for disease.

To reduce a tendency toward alternate bearing: A tree puts a lot of energy into producing and ripening fruit. Heavy fruit set demands a heavy expenditure of energy, and the tree will need to recuperate from this. For instance, a pear tree left unthinned during a heavy-bearing year might produce a big number of small-to-medium-sized fruit, then next year, none at all. By thinning out the very heavy fruit sets, you can avoid this problem. An exception is that some varieties are genetically programmed to be alternate bearing.

To avoid weakening younger trees: Allowing a very young tree to produce fruit retards its growth. It is better to remove all the fruit for the first couple of years to allow the tree to put its energy into becoming established.

To control fruit drop: Fruit trees tend to drop fruit spontaneously. If the fruit set is not thinned, they might drop all, or at least most of their fruit. This happens to my almond tree when I don't thin the nuts soon enough.

To stagger the fruit-ripening process: If you look at fruit set on most trees, you will see little green nubbins of varying sizes, indicating differing stages of development. If you thin fruit so that some remain in each of the various stages of development, you will be able to spread ripening over a much longer period. That is, the more developed fruits remaining will ripen first, the others, later. Or, you can select all fruits of the same stage of development so that they will all ripen at nearly the same time, which is good if you are canning or freezing them for use throughout the year.

To improve the appearance of the fruit: Some fruit should be thinned on the outside of the tree, which applies to fruit that is easily sun scalded such as persimmons or loquats. Other types of fruit, such as peaches and some varieties of apples, should be thinned on the inside of the tree because they need exposure to sunlight to color up.

Gorgeous Butterfly Bushes

The gorgeous purple-flowered bush on the right
is one of my original butterfly bushes

Last year I started a small landscape project in my new mini back yard, which was created when I had a privacy fence installed to keep my chickens away from my back patio. I purchased a number of water-conserving plants to create a colorful planting bed area, which included some taller background shrubs - Hopseed bush - that were placed along the fence.

The Hopseed bushes came highly recommended, by a local water conservation group, for the High Desert area, but I did not have success with them. All 11 of them died back to the ground during the winter, and only one of those re-sprouted the following spring. I was hoping for something that would not have to start over from ground level every spring. Then, I remembered the two beautiful butterfly bushes (Buddleia davidii) I already had, and how well they were doing in my yard - more of them along the fence would be perfect, plus they would attract butterflies and hummingbirds.

The bushes I already had are purple flowering of an unknown variety. I knew that Butterfly Bush came in other shades, so I decided to do a bit of online shopping to see what I could find. I was amazed at all of the colors - purples, pinks, magenta, whites, yellow, reds, bicolor and more - wow! They were available as small, containerized plants or as seeds, and from many different online nurseries. I chose to start with containerized plants - although on the small side, it would be much quicker than starting from seeds.

The labels from some of the
new butterfly bushes.

I ended up purchasing 14 plants in four different varieties to place all around the yard - Inspired White, Peacock, Inspired Pink, and Honeycomb. I may end up with a couple more if I can find space because I had a hard time making choices from all of the beautiful selections available.

For the most part, butterfly bushes do well in USDA zones 4-9 – the High Desert where I live is in zone 8b. These fast-growing deciduous plants can grow to six to eight feet high and four to five feet wide, and bloom from mid spring through early fall. I prune mine back to about two or three feet each winter, and each spring they come back quickly, and better than ever. They prefer full sun, but all of mine have done well with a little afternoon shade. They like average well-drained soil and low to moderate watering. Mine are in native soil that gets a layer of compost/mulch applied every year. They are watered with drip irrigation.

The highlight of these great plants is their sweet-scented, cone-shaped flower clusters that make excellent cut flowers and are attractive to many pollinators, especially bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds. Removing the spent flowers encourages them to flower even more.

Just a few weeks after I planted the new bushes, they were growing and beginning to get flower buds. This year they are starting out around three-feet high and are showing promise to be full of gorgeous flowers. I can hardly wait for to see what they look like this summer.