What was everyone's worst bug this summer?

Ray: A red horned catepillar maybe? LOL Your guesses are as good as mine on that one. I had something crawling down my back this evening, made me come out of my shirt real quick, never did find out what it was. These bugs think I'm a plant now I suppose.
joy

Red on green, that's an awesome contrast, Mark. Gorgeous tomato.

Joy, my worst bug this summer: annoying people. There are pellet guns for squirrels, it's too bad we can't use them on some people. Well...

CapeCodGardener, I Googled fake headlines and found a fake headline generator.

Found about 40-50 assorted worms today on my remaining plants. I'm starting to like them if you can believe it. lol

Here's some I just picked off one plant.

Here's some from last time I looked. Hornworms sure are photogenic...

Hornworm and a baby(lower left)....

It's been warm so he just wanted to get out of the sun :)

Gosh Ray, I'm sure glad you are feeding them so well down there...it's keeping them south of OC. With 3 plants, I only found 3 hornworms this year. The mockingbirds made up for them though!
Carol

Carol, I think I have the largest population of different kinds of worms/caterpillars around. At least from what I have seen from other gardens. They are everywhere this year, more so than others. Luckily it's late in the season and have harvested more than I could ever need. Also in transition from warm season to fall/winter plants. I will be using BT on the cole crops I'm starting to plant. The worms should be disappearing within a month so I'm letting them eat what they want. They have become pets :)

I have yet to have any bird problems. Wish they would eat some of these worms. Useless birds :)

I try real hard not to use pesticides...I bought guinea hens...but Im your case.. bring on the malathion!!!

I hate spraying as well. I am gonna get some Malathion but I won't spray my veggies with it. Just the whitefly infested Hibiscus. I haven't been as diligent as I should be with my remaining plants. I kinda let them just grow and fend for themselves.

Ray: Letting my plants fend for themselves has left me with orange watermelons, due to squash bugs. I should have known that planting 70-90 cukes would do something awful here and looks like it did. I did buy some organic stuff from the local nursery that they use, I figure if it works for them it should for me right? LOL It's called all season oil.
joy

HOLY! 70-90 Cukes? Wow, that should feed an army. I'm not too worried about all the worms and bugs atm. I had a pretty decent tomato haul this year so it's time to transition to other plants.

Ray: Well, I'm making the transition from summer to fall garden myself, and as usual, bought more plants than I need. I did dispose of the cukes a long time ago, now getting rid of the bugs that were attracted to my garden because I had so many of them. The problem was, when I removed the cukes from the garden, the squash bugs jumped onto the melon plants because there were no more cukes for them.

My problem now is that I have 36 cabbage plants, 3 kinds to go into 9 HEBs and only have 7 eighteen gallon totes full of coir left to plant with. I'm going to plant 3 heads per HEB and then give the rest to my sister for her to plant in her garden in the ground. After the 9 HEBs are ready, I need to plant 4 number 10 smart pots and 5 number 15 smart pots and trying to figure out if I will have enough coconut coir for all that mixing it at a 80/20 ratio? I'm afraid I will run out of coir and don't want to do that as I'm planting beets, carrots and onions in the smart pots later this month.
joy

Welcome to the Worm orgy...

For me it was deer. Chewed my tomato plants down. Had to replace them all and bought deer fencing to rig up protection. It worked but too much rain spoiled the tomato season. Also something drilled a small hole in all my bell peppers. I am not a happy vegetable camper this year...

I think this next spring, I'm going to omit the cukes, and basically stick to tomatoes, peppers and eggplants. Question though, what luck has everyone had in growing the huge beefsteaks in the earthboxes? I'm going to use the 5 gallon HEBs; but, I'm also thinking of using my earthboxes too. I have 10 EBs now, 6 GPs and am going to be getting at least 5 more new EBs this November just for tomatoes? I think the smart pots will be a real pain for some reason, on all veggies, except perhaps tomatoes and potatoes, my beets aren't doing too well in them and they are an inconvenience when you are used to the earthboxes and 5 gallon HEB containers.

Of course, it is early yet. I jumped the gun on my judgment of the coconut coir, as in clean up I discovered it was easier to seperate roots from medium with the coconut coir, and I also had almost every bit of the coconut coir left, with the potting mix, very little potting mix was left that didn't have roots going through it and it was very tedious getting the roots out. So; I'm going to be replacing all my EBs that had potting mix in them with coconut coir this Spring.

joy

Ray, that hornworm photo is incredible. . . . I alternate between feeling disgust, and then a kind of wonder because the worms are really rather beautiful. . .

And you held them in your bare hand!

My first tomatoes ever were annihilated by my first hornworms ever! Next year....

carrielamont: My first season for planting tomatoes ever, the horned catepillar devistated all my peppers, all my maters too. Didn't get a single tomato or pepper in the bunch. The following Spring, I planted tomatoes and peppers and eggplants (this past Spring), I was ready for my arch enemy, he never showed up. Ain't that about the way it goes? LOL
joy

Oh good, then I can look forward to next spring. Unfortunately up here we only have one crop a year. :(

Carrielamont: Yepper, we only got one season too, and I love my maters. It was weird as I got completely different bugs this Spring than last Spring, I did see a few lady bugs in the back yard, some lizards out front and think I'm on my way to a good bug garden perhaps. I had stink bugs, beetles, aphids and ants this Spring, and I didn't have any ants last Spring. So; don't give up. If you get them next Spring, grab them and put them in rubbing alcohol, that will kill em for sure, or we could always mail them to ray right? LOL Neem oil helps. I also suspect that the birds may like them?
joy

I thought in FL you had year-round fresh veggies?

No we don't. Florida has 3 zones actually. They are in zone 10 when you get to south FL, and the summer is actually too hot and humid to grow much of anything, then there is Central FL which is I think zone 9, and they are probably where you can grow all year round. Up here in NW FL where I am, I'm a zone 8, my summer's are like south FL Spring and my Spring is beautiful. Now S FL has beautiful fall/winters but it gets cold up here where I am, and you have to only grow cool weather veggies, tomatoes, eggplants, okra can't be grown here after this month where I am, will be too cold until mid March. Of course, I will start my tomatoes in late February and then move them into the greenhouse when it starts to warm up a bit.

My tomatoes turned out beautiful this Spring; but, I used Boca Bob's fertilizer which has magnesium and calcium in it, some fertilizers don't have that. And, I did the bury the stem experiment, that he uses with his tomatoes, and I had tomato plants with their main stems about as thick as my arm, made for some healthy strong plants that were able to fein off anything that was thrown their way. Sometimes, a change in the way you garden is all it takes and timing seems to be everything. I did a lot of experimenting this past Spring and summer and probably will again this fall/winter and again this Spring/summer. Like this Spring, I will make sure I spray before I see the bugs and will probably have a bug gun like the one my daughter bought her son. That thing can come in handy for the bugs I can't catch, it sucks them right up into this chamber like thingy.
joy