… or Developing Your Gardener’s Eye.

I’ve mentioned in previous posts about developing what I call your gardener’s eye. By which, I mean knowing what your garden looks like generally and what it ought to look like, so you notice changes that can signal an issue of concern. In caring for a garden organically, catching a problem early is especially important.

I was at a client’s garden pruning the tomatoes (more on that another time) when I noticed the following.

At first I just noticed a small amount on one leaf and didn’t think much of it, but then I noticed more on other leaves and decided I should take another look. To my gardener’s eye this looked like frass (caterpillar excrement), even though it was definitely different than the only other frass I’m familiar with.

Cabbageworm Frass

As I looked more closely at the tomato plants I quickly spotted a small tomato hornworm. And I found 4 more throughout the tomato patch.

Small Tomato Hornworm

This was a revelation to me, because I’ve never manged to spot a tomato hornworm until it was at least a couple of inches long and had done a lot of damage to my plants. I was also surprised to spot the hornworm so easily, because I’ve often had trouble spotting the big ones. However, I realized that the white stripes on the small caterpillar are much closer together than those on a mature hornworm making the small hornworm stand out against the color of the leaves much more than a large one.

Mature Tomato Hornworm

So now I will look for this clue of caterpillar poo to save a lot of damage to my garden. You can too, with this problem, and others, as you develop your gardener’s eye.