We have an amazing garden this year at webmeadow HQ. Remember our pals at Old Shaw Farm? They had a bunch of leftover seedlings at the end of spring that they were kind enough to give us, including 22 very healthy tomato plants.
The tomatos are going crazy, and today I was wandering about looking for any early ripeners. Instead, I found my mortal enemy:
If you are not familiar with the vernacular name "those little bastards", you may also know these dudes as Tomato Hornworms. They are huge, and these guys will eat an entire tomato leaf (audibly, even!) in less time than it takes you to say, "eeewwwwwwwwwwww". (The plant in question is some sort of variety of ground cherry -- papery husk like a tomatillo, and when it's ripe it tastes an awful lot like a mango.) According to their wikipedia page, they glow under a blacklight. That doesn't make me feel any better.
Hey, did you know that one of my birthday presents last year was a microscope that hooks up to the computer? So I brought this guy upstairs and had a photoshoot.
Mouth of doom!! The white things are half-leg, half-mandible, four-fifths GROSS. I can only guess that dots in the upper right are some sort of eye.
Look at those toes! I also got a picture of a big ol' caterpillar butt crack, but I will spare you because this is a family blog.
Then I fed it to the chickens.
