I *heart* Braconids

The first poor photograph is from this morning, showing the hornworm
covered in braconid wasp eggs. He is curiously in the same exact spot
as yesterday and has done no damage, which made me wonder if he was
dead already. Which brings us to the second poor photograph - a dark
and deflated hornworm hanging from another tomato branch. A little
more internet searching explained that the wasp lays its eggs inside
the worm and the larva eats its way out (apparently leaving behind a
deflated worm corpse). So the egg carrier in the first shot must be
already dead and just acting as a host now. How sci-fi.
I'm hoping that the wasps will now take over in keeping my 32 tomato
plants worm-damage free.

Also it seems these guys are tobacco hornworms, not tomato hornworms.
Tobaccos have a read horn and tomatoes have a green one. Their white
markings differ slightly, too. But they behave pretty much the same.

parasitic wasp

This is the first hornworm I've ever had with wasp eggs on it. My
master gardener class said that the little white eggs should hatch
within 24 hours, kill this worm, and look for others. So I'll leave it.

dinner party

My brother (an incredible cook) and my niece (an incredible cutie)
came over and we made a huge garden dinner. My fridge was overflowing
with zucchini and green beans so we combined it with this harvest of
beets, potatoes, carrots and a nice little load of my very first
tomatoes of 2010.

Shallots

I planted three experimental shallots this spring. They did great! I
will definately be planting many more next year. The tops started
dying down last week so yesterday I dug up the tiny clump that didn't
look so promising. Well here it is, not bad! I let it dry overnight in
a shady spot on the front porch. Tonight we ate them all in a big
salad of Cherokee Purples, Chiogga beets, parsley and lemon juice -
all from the garden. It was very delicious!

Cherokee Purples

A couple more days and it looks like these may be my first tomatoes of
2010. That is of course as long as I get to them before those
monstrous tomato worms. I pulled two more of them today, just inches
from these Cherokees. I know that there is only one generation of
hornworms this far north but I wonder if they all come at once or if
they come in succession.
Also, it looks like my San Marzanos have blossom end rot, which I
don't undertand because I watered them pretty regularly and none of
the other varieties have it. Odd.

Garden Udate

It finally rained lastnight! I went out to cut one of my beautiful
gladiolus and of course came in with some zucchini. The Cherokee
Purples are begining to change color and the tomato horn worms are
right on schedule. While outside I disposed of 4 of them, each one
making me shudder with the creeps. I also discovered that squirrels
had eaten into the ears of half of my corn!

Which brings me to some of my gardening disappoinments so far this
year. The mystery sunflower pest has found the 'elve's blend'
sunflowers in the back and all but wiped them out. Aside from coddling
my broccoli with row covers, loopers snuck in and wiped them out for
the second year in a row. Dear future self, let someone else grow
broccoli. Another pest has cleaned the leaves right off my basil. And
finally, a lot of my carrots are weird. Half have been awesome but the
other half have a lot of bifurication and get stumpy. I know they're
not hitting rocks because this bed is so fluffly and rock free. Some
bug likes eating all the fronds off their greens, maybe that's related?

Next year, no corn, no broccoli, more glads, and find some sort of
spray for basil and sunflowers.