Visited a friend today to see what’s new on her farm and was
led down memory lane. We were in the vegetable garden admiring her various
heritage tomato plants when I saw the BIGGEST tomato horn-worm I’ve ever seen. Fatter
than my middle finger he was; his fat, juicy, green and white and black-striped
body with its tell-tale black horn jutting from his head; or is it his tail,
brought me right back to my own tomato patches of the past. I instinctively
grasped the horn, mindless of my friend’s horror and pulled him away from the leafless
stem one suction-cup leg at a time, until he hung from my thumb and
index finger squirming and spitting, and the battle was on. We found five-inch-long
ones and one-inch longs and all sizes in between. We marveled at their initial invisibility until I
recalled the poop is one easy way to find these destructive, hungry monsters.
They eat and eat and eat, then litter the leaves and soil beneath themselves
with substantial black poops. My inner murderer, which you will recognize from having
read MasterGardener – the novel, becomes highly active in garden scenarios. A
contest ensued as to who could squirt their horn-worm's innards the furthest underfoot. The
garden was left littered with flattened striped bodies, juices glistening
against the dry earth, returning their stolen spoils back from whence they
began. Rejuvenated and refreshed, my fingers green with horn-worm spit, I declared
myself the winner, having rid the tomato patch of fifty-six assorted–sized horn-worms,
and saved, I do not know how many, ripening tomatoes from death. I haven’t felt
so good since the last infestation. Perhaps it’s time I got back to
planting tomatoes. Perhaps I could hire myself out as a horn-worm picker. Perhaps I should just get back to writing.
For more on the subject see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato_hornworm
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