Quick link to Jay's album.

Where's Lisa when we need her?

Here is a link that might be useful: The mystery worm

Scott should know because he always alerts us to cat infestations that might show up on our pecan trees.

Whatever they are, I found them in my pecan tree today. (No web, Scott, so not the usual fall tent caterpillars?)

Maybe they are armyworms or gypsy moth cats?

Whatever they are, I assume Jay removed them from the plants. I might let cats hang around in the summer, but not in the cool fall weather when every day counts before a freeze comes, and you need all your leaves for photosynthesis so your fruit will mature before frost.

Dawn

Dawn
What about picking off tom blossoms that you know are never going to mature?

Jay
A woman has to admire a man's man that can call a worm, 'pretty'. Don't know much about (((worms))) but I liked that! :)

Barbara

Barbara,
Thanks. I enjoy nature and admire it's beauty like I assume most do. If it had been a hornworm it would of been in a new world today. I have a few plants winding down but still ripening fruit or would of moved him there. And have one plant struggling but it has a mater and want to see if I can possibly get it too mature. So hopefully it can suvive on something in the flower bed. There is no web at all. And if you look in the one picture you can see several limbs it stripped. I can't remember ever seeing one before. Jay

Barbara,

I have mixed feelings about stripping off blooms that will never mature, and here is why: how do we know they won't mature?

We often make fall gardening decisions, of necessity, using the average date of the first fall freeze for our geograpic area. It is only an average though, and that is where the gardener has to be a gambler and play the odds.

Our average first killing freeze is usually around November 20th here, so if we have an average year, the blooms I have on the plants now likely will ripen before then, or will at least be close enough to breaker stage that I can pick them the night before the first freeze and ripen them inside. Of course, in warmer, drier autumns, tomatoes mature faster so that might be bad news for us in terms of the current weather.

Since moving here, we've had our first, hard killing freeze as early as September 30th (in 1999, I think) and as late as mid-December (I'd have to research, might have been 2003 or 2004). So, in that late freeze year, even some late October blossoms had time to set fruit that ripened in December.

The question, then, is how much you want to play the odds. Being a tomato maniac, I play the odds to the max because I want the maximum production. You never know when it is going to be a late freeze kind of year (although such a late freeze is really rare and the signs this year don't point in that direction).

So, whether to top the plants or pull blossoms to divert all energy into ripening the current fruit is a personal choice. Go with your gut and do what feels right for you. I'm a big believer in trusting your own instincts.

Jay,

Does it look like a fall army worm? That's my best guess. There are many fall armyworms and the ones I see most often are either solid black or black with yellow stripes. Most armyworms turn into really ugly (IMO) brown and white moths.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Yellow Striped Army Worm

Dawn that is the culprit. So he should be happy in the vinca bed with a few other things there also to munch on. He can't hurt it. Thanks for the picture. I knew you would know. I just have never noticed one on my maters before. And if on something else don't worry about them. If you want to live around here don't mess with my veggies. Everything else is fair game.

I also agree about topping and trimming flowers. I just never do it. Till last year. We had such a bad year. And what production I was going to get was going to be very late. So around Sept. 1st I start topping and removing blooms. As all the so called "weather forecasters" said and early frost and winter. I got two weeks worth of good picking and then it tailed off for the next two plus weeks before the first frost. And it was warm two weeks after it. If I hadn't topped my planted and removed flowers I could of covered them and had fruit for another month longer. I didn't get to around 4 so had fruit from them and that was all the last few weeks. If I ever feel compelled to do it again it will be on a limited basis just to get seed from something. But never everything. Jay

Jay,

I'm not sure I 'knew' but I figured it out.

I suppose there are fall armyworms every year, but I really only notice them about once every three or four years. Apparently this is one of those years.

Today I had caterpiller frass on a fall tomato--a Sweet 100 that is about 4' tall and blooming and producing well. I couldn't find the cat though, so maybe it has moved on to something else. The odd thing? I didn't find any stripped foliage. The cat must have eaten something because the frass is everywhere--on almost every leaf on the plant, but nothing is nibbled. It is bizarre. Maybe it ate elsewhere and used the tomato plant as a "cat litter box". I've never seen that before though.

I agree with letting the tomatoes just do their thing for as long as they can.

In 1999, when the early frost came and the forecasters said they were unequivocally positive that those of us in low-lying areas would get cold enough to lose our plants, we spent a couple of hours constructing an impromptu hoophouse over one bed of tomato plants. We did indeed have a killing frost but that covered bed survived and produced for another couple of months. Since then, I've been pretty willing to just let them produce, cover them if I can, and try to carry the harvest as deep into autumn as possible.

Dawn

When it appears the first frost is here I long at the long range. If they show only a one or two night dip and then several days of warmer weather I try to cover some. But a few times not often it will frost and then stay cold and may even go into the low 20's if so I just let them die. I look at the odds of me getting another 7-14 days. If it is hopeful I cover. Jay