Tomatoes get their turn

Well, it seems like there have been problems throughout the garden but the tomatoes have skated by mostly unscathed … until now.

I discovered some tell-tale “holey leaves” this morning and after a brief (but tricky) search, turned up some more caterpillars.  I figured they were more cabbage loopers, but my research today indicated they were probably tomato hornworms.

Either way, I already have the cure in-hand — Thuricide (BT).  I wouldn’t say it worked great before, but it was better than nothing.

We came home this evening and spent about 45 minutes looking for the little buggers (and damn do those things blend in well).  When we finally gave up, we’d collected 15 of them from 3 of the tomato plants (surprisingly, Shaggy didn’t seem too affected).  I’m sure there were more but we had a heck of a time finding them.

After the scavenger hunt, we sprayed the leaves down with BT.  Hopefully in a few days these guys will be a thing of the past.

While digging through the leaves, we also discovered that some of our Green Zebra tomatoes have the ever-popular “blossom end rot”.  The Internets tells me that this is caused by a calcium deficiency and often occurs with the first fruits of the season (check) and/or when watering has been inconsistent (semi-check: we’ve had periods of no rain and then an inch or more at a time).  Apparently time and consistent watering are often the only cures (but I’m open to other suggestions).

Here are some photos for today’s update: