Tomato Horn Worms and the disturbingly gross way they die

I recently had some things come up in my life where I needed a small mental health break which started as one week but then turned into a bit over two months due to my own self-sabotaging, stubborn personality. But even with everything crazy I was processing during that time I never stopped trying to get out into my garden and make sure my plant babies were well cared for. It was during my recent clean up for my winter garden that I accidentally touched one of the biggest most creepy and gross tomato worms I have ever seen. Now I have seen tomato horn worms before, but they were only about an inch long and normally just come right off the branch or vine and are easily squashed or tossed in the garbage can. The ones that I have seen as of late have been three inches or longer and carrying around these big white egg sacs all over their bodies. Something like this picture here:

 

Super gross right?! If you are trypophobic I apologize, but I needed to share my trauma of seeing this thing in my yard...merrily eating my food. Or at least so I had thought till I did some research on why the heck it looked like this. I found out that little guys like this, covered in these gross egg sacs are in fact dying slow horrible deaths. The eggs come from a small native wasp species which eats these bad insects in the garden. What happens is once these wasp lay there eggs on the backs of the horn worm, the eggs slowly dig into its skin. Once the wasp larvae hatch, they burrow into the worm and devour its insides while it is alive. The worm then after some days or weeks dies and the freshly matured wasp go on to continue the cycle. Nature can be gross, but this nasty looking situation is actually a really really good thing. This is as organic of pest control as you can get but truly a testimony to how savage Mother Nature can be. 

If you have a gross looking pest in your garden that tops this share it with me in the comments and if you like this Blog add your email to the subscriber list. I feel about 80% back to normal so I think I will be back to doing my normal end of week posts. Happy October!

The Farmer's Review: Juliet Tomatoes

When I pick plants at the beginning of the year, often times I will watch videos and read about a dozen catalogs before I narrow down what I'm putting in the ground for the year. This year though I had an early war with my neighbors cat, who decided all of my boxes, plots, and containers would be his bathroom. Thanks to the cat, who I swear is an evil genius trapped in a cute fuzzy body I actually didn't get to have the garden I initially wanted. I had wanted Roma tomatoes this year for making some delicious salsa, but the store was sold out of seedlings and by the time I won my cat war it was too late to plant seed. So rather then Roma this year I ended up with Juliet, and I am actually much happier with the variety then I had thought I would be. So since it worked out, I wanted to give a quick review on the variety and its pros and cons.

Juliet Tomatoes

The Juliet Tomato is a red indeterminate variety of tomatoes. They are a hybrid variety which is a cross between the Roma tomato and Grape Tomato varieties. In my experience with them this year, the Juliet grows tomatoes maxing about 2 inches in length and 1 inch across. They are not a sweet variety, so I was able to make some salsa with them.





Pros:

• Highly Production, you will get so many tomatoes off of this plant. It isn't even half way thru the season and I already have harvested 4 lbs of tomatoes just from my one plant and it is still flowering and producing fruit. 
•  Seems very pest resistant, I haven't noticed a lot bugs eating at it.
• Minimal maintenance, the plant has been extraordinarily healthy. I give it a little trim once every two weeks to give it some shape. It also seems to do pretty well in the high heat.  
• Good flavor, not watery but not sweet either. 
• Very versatile, the Juliet is a perfect variety for salads and sauces.

Cons:

• Needs regular harvesting to maintain fruit size, this is not a variety to allow vine ripening. The plant produces so much so quickly that if I leave them on the vine to go fully red, it will actually cause premature ripening on the smaller tomatoes. If you want to maintain good size fruit, pull them off when they just barely turn orange-yellow in color.
• A bit small, for me it makes them difficult to cut because of hand pains and spasms.
• Its a hybrid, so no seed-saving.

Overall I give this variety 8.5/10 stars, I'd give them another shot. If you grew this variety either this year or in a past year let me know how you like them in the comments below and if you liked this review feel free to set up an email subscription for notifications on new posts, its free.