This is the sad state my pumpkin is in... all the leaves were infected and I was gonna just let it the whole thing die and rot on its own but my conscience got the better of me and so on Thursday, I chopped off all the remaining leaves from the left plant and sprayed a 50/50 water-milk solution at the base of the second plant and everywhere else: the ground underneath them, the air around them, etc. Today, now Monday, it looks like the white mildew is still alive. -__- Le sigh. Another round of the above mentioned water-milk solution....
Here's a closer up picture of my pumpkin. It is turning a lovely shade of orange. However, I keep thinking it'll start to sag and soften and rot, but so far still pretty hard. I'm amazed truth be told. But, will it hold off until Halloween???
And then my tomato plant caught me by surprise (not it being horizontal or droopy from lack of water, but...) when I noticed LOTS of little black pellets underneath it. Come to think of it, there were lots of TINIER black pellets on Thursday, but I didn't think much of them. Figured maybe flies were pooping around there for some strange reason. Upon closer inspection, I found this:
Another look to the left and I saw TWO more of the same size!?
I figured it was time to try to get my tomato plant back to its former glory and make it upright. I carefully removed all the ties I used and cut off all the twine I used and then removed all the "supports." Then, I separated and fanned out the branches. To keep my tomato plant off the ground, I used our benches. See pics below:
outside looking in
inside looking out... see the black specks on the ground? those are ALL the caterpillars' poop
aerial view
When I was separating out the branches, guess what? I found four more caterpillars of the same huge size and two smaller ones that were about half the length of the bigger ones for a family of EIGHT caterpillars munching away on my tomato leaves and a few unripen tomatoes. Thank goodness mostly leaves were eaten. Here's a close up pic of one of the eight caterpillar and then the same one on top of a glove for measure.
Can you find all eight of them? Personally, I only see 6 (5 big uns and 1 lil one)
I also cut my oldest batch of cherry tomatoes in order to try forcing them to turn red as it's been more than a month now.
Ain't them purty?
I placed these in a brown paper bag along with a small apple.
I shall check on these AND them caterpillars to make sure they didn't run back to my tomato plant tomorrow.
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