Just what do you do when you see some fat, green, grub munching on your newly planted cherry tomato plant? After screaming I mean?
Right oh, you call for hubby!
He just reaches in and grabs those fat suckers right off the plant and tosses them over our fence for the birds. Our baby tomato plant is just a few months old and had this whole family of four tomato bugs just munching away at it.
Last night as I lay in bed, I thought about how much that grubby, big, ol, caterpillar looked like Heimlich from Bugs Life. Only he wasn't craving candy corn. I wish he was.
I remember seeing these fat grubs so long ago when my parents had a huge vegetable garden in their back yard and we had to get some powder you squeezed on the plants to kill off Sir Heimlich and his royal family.
I mean just where do this grubs come from?
I did some google searching and it turns out that they are officially called horn worms laid by a hornworm moth who lays it's eggs on the underside of your plants leaves. In 3-4 weeks you have what my hubby picked off the plant and it can destroy a plant in about 2 days if left unchecked. No wonder why that poor old tomato plant was looking rather thin. It also eats potatoes and bell pepper plants as well!
They offer a few suggestions to get rid of them but the best suggestion is just to do what hubby did and pick them off and leave them to the birds. They even suggested for cowards like me, to flick them off, step on them or cut them in half with kitchen shears! Oh yeah, like I am about to do any of them. Heck I don't even like stepping on spiders or anything else that may omit a crunching sound.
After hubby picked the last of Heimlich's relatives off my tomato plants, he turned and looked at me and said, "I guess I know what I am here for!"
I laughed and told him, "Mike Rowe, from Dirtiest Jobs, has nothing on you!"
Seems like hubbies in general are our heroes on many fronts. They are the spider killers, and all purpose bug killers, weed pullers, fix the toilet person when it doesn't flush, and even removing only God knows what from our sinks and drains when those stop up. All this among all their other jobs as all purpose handy men!
My hubby, Steve, is truly my Hero!
That is not the only reason I keep him around! :)
Posts
23 comments:
Those hornworms are just ugly! Glad your hubby did the job!
Yuck, thankfully your husband doesn't mind picking them off and tossing them over the fence. What's amazing is how quicky they can eat everything in sight!
This is precious! I'm with you Kat. My husband Peter is my HERO and for EVERY reason. It's a blessing to have him in my life.
It's also nice that hubby does take care of all the nasty critter things :)
Love ya.
Eewww...What would we do if there are no "great husbands" around?
I can see myself layering with some protection head to toe, before I pull that "bug" from the leaf.
God bless.
Unfortunately, I'M the great spider killer in my family! My hubby hates them. We were married quite a few years before I found out his mom has the same fear. So I can blame her! He has no problem with snakes though...ICK!!!
Hooray for Hubbies!! What would we ever do without them?????
:)
Hornworms- funny! (Well, not so funny when they are facing you, right?) I love how you speak of your hubby. My husband is my hero, too! Love you, Laurie
P.S. I was thinking earlier that I wished you lived nearby. I would love to hang out- and I would love to pick your wise brain on homeschooling (and being a mom) as the time grows near for my daughter to be homeschooled!
those grubs sound gross! Hubbys are have many uses! Isn't it wonderful that God gave us a husband to spend our lives with.
Love Collette xxx
I was wondering why your posts weren't turning up on my dashboard. I must not have hit the right button when I thought I started following. Here I was blaming another computer glitch...Thank God I have kids to figure these things out for me!
Grubs are so disgusting, yes. We always end up with the kind that we call cut worms that get in the vine of squash and watermelon or any vine type plant. They get right in there and grow so big they got off the nutrient and water supply to the plant and overnight the whole thing dies. They drive me crazy. No amount of research has turned up a way to get rid of or prevent these critters that actually works.
And those tomato worms are disgusting!
Kat
Wow so glad you were able to get that little er I mean big Heimlich before he DID eat all of you tomatoes!
I am with you my husband is my Hero! He kills all kinds of things, Fixes EVERYTHING among being just a wonderful man of God! We are blessed women for sure!
Yes,those things are ugly. Thankfully you are blessed with a hero"hubby" to fly in to save the day:) This post made me laugh:)
ugh! Glad you had him there to save your tomatoes.
We found worms on a little spruce tree in our backyard yesterday. Sadly for us, it as after returning home from a week away and they had already pretty much killed the tree.
Not sure what these little grubs are purposed for besides killing all our precious plants!
Yup, that's me "The Greatest American Hero!" Do you remeber that show? Okay now I will have something new to Blog about.
Thanks for saying that I am a hero, although all I did was reach in grab a bug and chucked it over the fence.
Not at allwhat I would say heroic!
(But I'll take it!)
LOL...
Steve,
It was more than just chucking said Heimlich over the fence, it was his munching party of followers that you had to find, locate and remove.
And it wasn't a bug, it was a huge, green, fat, chubby, thing you thought was a caterpillar! It had to go and you made it so.
Heroic in my book anyday.
Rosel: You are too much like me if I had to remove said Heimlich myself! I would have gotten our 3 foot long pruning shears and attempted to sever the branch he was hanging on and toss it over our fence.
By the way, over the fence, means into our composting bin like area, it's 30 feet by 5 feet and we toss all kinds of green waste over there.
Now there isn't much back there besides dirt, so we thought we'd offer our bird friends who reside in the trees above some fine dining experience.
Love and Hugs ~ Kat
Bugs of any kind are to be feared in my book. Thankfully my hubby is a pro bug killer.
A woman does need a hero, that is the way we were wired, and a man needs a damsel in distress to save...be it from grubs or from greater evil things. A woman needs a hero.
Yes, the best thing that can happen to you is to have your knight in shining armor standing by.
And it all points to the greatest hero of all, our Lord Jesus Christ.
This was another meaty post, Kat. Thanks for sharing!
funny! never seen a grub before..
Love,
Kelly
This is so cute!!! I am glad I have a sweetie too that when there is something like this I call help!!!, and he comes running.LOl. Thank you for sharing this delightful post!
Blessings,
Sue
((((Kat))))
andrew zimmern would have thrown them in a pan with some salt and fried them up...eeeeeewwwww!
thankful for savior hubbies, they're awesome, aren't they!?
LOL Oh Wow! What a wonderful post! My husband is most definitely my hero too. He takes such good care of me too. God has blessed us so!
we have those big green horn worms on our tobacco plants. Suzie loves to play with them. We tried to see one through the coccon to moth stage but it got too hot and died. Maybe this year
Crunching sound? I picture a gooey sound. Ugh.
Yep, hubbies are good for those dirty jobs. And many other respectable jobs too. What a hero!
Post a Comment