Cutworm Cuisine

Ah, the dreaded cutworm. You tomato growers know what I talk about, the scourge of the garden. These giant caterpillars (and the moth they turn into is this unimpressive, scraggly looking thing) bury themselves in the dirt and come out at dawn and dusk to snack on promising tomatoes. We've tracked down two in our raised bed, below is the fate of a found cutworm on the Scordato homestead. First, the cutworm is hanging out on a plant, content with the tomato bounty before it.

Here is an example of the cutworm's fine work.

Correction. Per my friend Jay, this tomato is actually the work of a calcium deficiency called blossom end rot, a disorder of pepper, tomatoes and eggplants and we need to put some tums at the base of the plant and water it well. Because it is not a disease, if you let the tomato ripen you can cut the bad part right out...or just compost it, which is what we did. However, the cutworm is not blameless and still deserved it's fate. Here is an up close shot of the cutworm. It is one of the caterpillars that have a fat end with "eye spots" to scare birds and other would be predators. The smaller end is actually the tomato-destroying end.

Before this pictures were taken, I had fed the chickens a cutworm in their tractor but the light was too low. One of the chickens, let's call her smartie Goldie, noticed me walking down toward the grapes (this is when they were still allowed in the grapes) and ran towards me before the other hens took any notice.

I don't know about you, but if I was that cutworm in that jar, I'd start wishing that I found another garden.

Uh-oh, now the other Goldies have caught on, run smartie run!

Next week, look for a post on the chickens being on house arrest. I'll give you a hint though...