The picture says it all.

OK, maybe not — if you can’t tell, those are parasitic wasp larvae on a tomato hornworm.  That’s right, good guys!  After all the pests and diseases that have attacked the garden this year, nature finally lent us a hand.

I’ve been working pretty much non-stop for the past week, but I got a moment to get out to the garden this morning to do some watering and maintenance.  Good news — tomato harvest has begun!  Little splashes of red in all that green, at last, after months of waiting.

I did forget one thing last night — I pulled the remainder of the arugula out of the garden yesterday.  Several of the plants had bolted and the rest tasted too floral/peppery for me.  It was a good run and a very productive plant.  I’ll probably do it again next year, but earlier and in smaller quantities.

Did a bunch of maintenance today but no big events to report.  We’ve had some of the green beans, which have been great, but the plants don’t put out a ton of beans so we haven’t had many.  Also, we did taste the one ripe black cherry tomato and it was awesome.  Shame the plant is pretty much trashed.

Here are the photos for Sunday, 7/13 (click the pic for the whole gallery):

Quick update — found this in the garden this morning:

This is what you get for messing with my tomatoes!

I queried the local extension office again about my tomato problem, and here was their response:

I’m sorry I don’t know what other tomato questions you may have had or what information you may have received, but I am including a link to a general information sheet about tomatoes.  It appears that you may have a fungal disease on your tomato plant.  The best defense against tomato fungus is choosing a disease resistant variety however most heirloom tomatoes are susceptible.  Page 4 of this handout at the above link lists fungicides that can control fungi on tomatoes.

Good luck and I hope this is helpful!

Is this early blight, perhaps?  I dunno but it doesn’t sound good.

I went ahead and picked up some organic fungicide, by GardenSafe, which is basically neem oil (it’s all they had at Home Depot).  When I got home I clipped off all the affected leaves/branches, sprayed the other leaves down with the fungicide, and scattered some corn meal on the soil per this link and various other forum postings.

I was also curious about some white, mildew-looking stuff on top of the soil in the new cucumber plant, so I went ahead and sprayed that as well.

Pics of the before and after in this gallery…

Good harvest day — first carrot!  And our first green beans, and some green onions to boot.

On another note, somethin’ ain’t right with the Black Cherry tomato plant.  It’s survived aphids and squirrel attacks, but it’s sparse and spindly, and the older, lower growth is all yellowed and dying.  The newer top growth is green and healthy looking, but WTF?

See the shots here … including the current state of the tomatoes and the first pic of the green bell pepper plant.

(BTW, current tomato hornworm count: 23)

Almost forgot – since the loss of the zucchini freed up some space, we decided to see if there was anything decent left out there for purchase.  Lowe’s came through (thanks Bing for the tip) – we picked up a bell pepper plant, a cucumber plant, and some more basil.  The pepper plant is in the zucchini spot (with room for friends if we find some) and I put the cuke and basil in containers.

Speaking of basil, I’ve got a post brewing to gripe about the lifecycle of my herb garden this year.

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:

Well, it put up a good fight, but unfortunately the zucchini just couldn’t make it.  We found it this morning covered in bugs, and the leaves it was attempting to grow were all chewed-up.  No more zucchini for us this year.