Tomatos

We have tomato plants for the first time. We're learning lots, so next year's crop should be lots better. We're trying to find a good spot to plant a small garden in the ground instead of in pots. The guys who built our fence said to use a post hole digger and plant the seedlings almost entirely in the ground. They all have so many tomatos they can't even eat them all. We'll see next year...

Olivia is very proud of her plants!

The other day as I was watering Olivia's plants (hmmm...), I realized the tops of several stalks were bare - they'd been eaten! Eeek! Pests!! What was eating my (Olivia's) plants??? And then I found them - the largest caterpillars I'd ever seen!!!!!! I had hopes that maybe they were actually Luna Moth caterpillars, but after a search on the internet, I was disappointed. These guys were Tobbacco Hornworms and they turn into Carolina Sphinx moths. They were so big I didn't even know how to kill them. They would make a huge mess if I stepped on them. They were large enough we ended up naming two of them - Bruce and Stanley. They even ate the tomatoes!! Olivia talked about them like pets. And then, as suddenly as they appeared, they were gone. We guess the birds got them, but they had to be BIG birds. I kinda miss them... (The guy pictured below is Stanley.)