The Beast In My Garden

I have been planning my spring garden the past few days, and in my quest for healthy living, I always include herbs for both cooking and making bath sachets etc. Usually all works out well and I have wonderful and healthy plants. I buy the best organic soil (I plant in containers here in Southern CA) and treat them like babies. I garden organically so that we eat our way to health, not filling our bodies with pesticides. There really is no mystery to gardening organically, so they say. You grow appropriate varieties, keep them healthy and cared for and when problems occur, choose the least toxic option. Sounds easy enough, right?

Well, last summer I decided to give it a try and grow my own tomatoes. I think I am still traumatized. Never having had luck growing them before, I had hoped they would thrive. And thrive they did. And so did the horned tomato worms that devoured my healthy plants on a daily basis. I didn't even notice at first. My plants were growing taller every day, and in fact were taller than I towards the end of their life span. The tomatoes were abundant and, had I harvested them while they were still green, I'd have been none the wiser. However, unbeknownst to me, there was a creature lurking about. So well camouflaged were they, that I recoiled in horror when I plucked a tomato from the vine and spied this creature gazing at me lovingly in all it's pudgy 4 inch glory! It appeared there was a village of them living amongst my plants and I could not even see them! Unsure what to do, I ignored the innocent gaze of this giant larvae and plucked it from my tomato at lightening speed! How dare he gnaw away at my organic garden with such fervor! And his family, I had to find them! I placed him in a container with a few leaves until I could identify this creature and set about trying to find more of his kind. They are a tricky bunch and many of them avoided capture that day.

I peered into the container at this creature eating his way to metamorphosis and suddenly imagined him turning into a giant, colorful butterfly. I imagined him flitting about my garden in all his glory and realizing I would have had something to do with his health and beauty. I had to find out what he was. I dashed off to my computer and started doing what I do best. Research. I must have looked at hundreds of photos and then, I saw him...the horned one. Living on unsuspecting tomato plants, he served no other purpose! He was no giant, colorful butterfly to be flitting about my garden! He was terrorizing it! He was an intruder here to consume every tomato on every tomato plant I had. Eating voraciously through his day and leaving nothing for us. He and his kind had to be stopped! Reading further and not wanting to spray toxins I learned my fate. "Handpicking" them was the best way to be rid of them! NO, I could not do it. Foraging through plants attacking horned ones, me, the one who hates killing anything, expected to handpick whole families from my vines and dispose of them!! There was only one thing to do, pull all of my plants. And that I did. Armed with my garden gloves and a giant trash bag, I pulled out one plant after another. No fresh tomatoes for salads, or quiche, or just fresh to nibble on for a snack. I was crushed and at one point even considered arming myself with a giant sprayer, going about my garden wielding it in defense of my wonderful plantings. Then I regained my senses and realized that no matter, giant horned caterpillars or not, I would not resort to chemicals.

This year I will stick to my herbs and flowers and visit the farmer's market for my tomatoes. If you are lucky enough to have thriving vegetable plants I admire you. If you have any advice for me so that I can give growing tomatoes another try in the future and avoid these pests I welcome it!