The other day I was in the garden watering it, picking cucumbers and zucchinis, and just general garden stuff when I saw a face looking at me from the tomato bushes. Looking more I made out a small body, legs, and eyes. It was a Hornworm munching on my tomato leaves!

          Ick! What was I going to do? I obviously had to get rid of it or it could ruin my tomato crops. 

          I quickly ran inside and grabbed the grabber, an extendable arm , to pick up the pest. Racing back to the garden I grabbed the first one, plucked him from his perch on the tomato leaf, ran out of the garden and flung him as far away from the garden as possible. I returned to my precious plants and discovered a second one munching away! This one too I grabbed, but he was strong and clung to the plant. I ripped him from the leaf with a mighty pull and flung him as far from the garden as well.

          I breathed a sigh of relief. For now my garden is safe, but for how long will it remain that way?

Click here to find more information on how to get rid of Hornworms on your tomato plants.

Use a string line to support heavy corn stalks

Several days ago my corn, which I had carefully planted, grown from seed, and have grown quite fond of blew down in the wind! What to do? If I let it stay there it would die on the ground or I could try something…

I decided to run a string line attached on both sides of the fence on both sides of the corn. This kept the corn upright; little wobbly, but stable. Then I added a bag of soil around the corn stalks and some of the exposed roots to keep it upright.

I went to bed that night hoping that my corn would be alright. The next day I saw that the corn looked somewhat better and some of it was beginning to stand on its own! The day after that the corn wasn’t leaning on the line anymore and was standing straight and tall. My quick thinking and quick actions had saved my precious corn! Now it is even stronger and is still growing taller every day. The golden colored tassels on the top are beginning to emerge. I have a feeling that my corn will not only continue to survive, but also thrive.

A week ago the corn in my garden was doing great! They were not only knee high by the fourth of July…..they were going to be shoulder high!

Then a pop up rain & windstorm came and knocked down eighty percent of my corn right down to the ground.

My first thought was, that’s it!  It’s over! My corn is going to die and all that hard work of planting and weeding was wasted.

My second thought was, I not going to give up that easy!

So, after the rain stopped I went out to my garden and gently picked up the corn. Unfortunately it wouldn’t stay up on its own it kept flopping down.

I decided to run a string line attached from one side of the fence to the other on both sides of the corn. This kept the corn upright but still leaning. Then I went to the garden store and bought a bag of soil to build up the area around the base of the stalk.

 This seems to be working for now. I guess the test will come with the next windstorm.