Camouflaged invader and seeds planted

 But first, the weather report.  It's going to be in the  low to mid 80's for the next week and a half. Still mostly okay considering there is a mitigating breeze to keep things reasonable. No flower pictures but have pictures from my foray in the garden last evening. The tomatoes really aren't that yellow either, just my phone camera.

It was getting rather dim when I went out, the pictures are brighter than it actually was and along with my decaying vision I didn't notice the invader in the right hand picture.

It was RIGHT THERE and I  missed it. A rather large tomato hornworm! Didn't realize it was there until I was getting into bed and opened my phone to do something. Looked through the pictures and I'll be dipped!. It was full dark by then, hours later so I took my chances and didn't go back down. Son of a gun... of course it wasn't there or anywhere to be found when I went down early this morning.

Just more pictures of my burgeoning tomatoes. I knew I was getting to cocky and comfortable with them being ony nibbled on.

I wouldn't be surprised if that hornworm is responsible for the cucumbers getting mowed down.

Definite slug and snail damage on leaves that were touching the ground. I pulled most of these off the south bed plants but that one in the upper left, that's more caterpillar damage than slugs like the one on the bottom.

I brought one of the flimsy plastic cups down and cut off the bottom for a protector around the cucumber seedling and also planted three more seeds in the container. Those will get divied up along the trellis and hoping it will be a mass of cucumbers there. Everything was still quite damp so didn't water them in last night but did so this morning.

 

The angle of the light tells you it was very early in the morning. I was woken by the apt. manager saying we needed to come down and check our car and move it.

Anyway, after that was done went to the garden to see if I could find the caterpillar and lighting, early morning eye fog and other factors were against me. The cucumber baby was still alive the leaf I had put down as a bait was mostly untouched.

 I fluffed, ruffled, shifted and moved as many of the leaves and branches as possible but it was difficult to tell if I brushed up against the critter since the tomato stems are just as cool and soft as a caterpillar. 

What I find interesting is all of these are Roma tomatoes, all seeds from the same package. Some are round, some are pointed, some are 'olive' shape. They are all looking good though and I need to bring some of the green wire down to tie up a few branches. You can see these pictures are all of the front one that had the hornworm on it.

Leaves are pretty much wilted and had a little chewing but nothing major. Slug traps had nothing new in them so have to re-bait them tonight as well. I picked those up while I was watering because I knew even with the water moving around it would still be dry under them. Which it was.

 

 While I was watering I suddenly noticed this huge beauty at the bottom of the trellis tomato. Biggest one of any of them just hanging out and  being protected by the rest of the plant. That may be of size and color to pick very soon. I may cut some of the leaves back around it so it gets some sunlight. Another little one hanging out behind the trellis I think I noticed the other day.

 

And lastly, there's still a garlic that is hanging out behind the tomato. Keep forgetting about it because it's being covered by the tomato. Might have to transplant it over some because it's not getting enough sun there. I can't reach it either because of the rassafrackin jade plant.

Still think I'm going to start cutting it back bit by bit and just toss the cuttings behind it. Doing it a few here and there every week and if the lady asks about it I'll be of two minds, 'oh I did a little cutting and it seems ot be doing much better' or 'I noticed it was kind of looser on the sides, not sure what it's doing'. I did tell her I wasn't going to mess with it but also hadn't planned on it completely flopping over like it did and getting in the way.

Will see what I find this evening.