Tomato Freedom

OPERATION: TOMATO FREEDOM
Throughout history third parties have inserted themselves between sparring rivals, often to assist the weaker of the two. This effort on the third party is seldom made altruistically; it is made to attain resources, power, etc. We on the farm have recently been battling all kinds of forces in order to save the tomatoes, not just because we want them to have a long and enjoyable pest-and weed-free life, but because we dream of one day devouring their sweet, juicy goodness.
Right off the bat, tomato plants are pretty labor intensive compared to most crops. With all that trellising and all... My entire childhood my mother grew tomatoes. She would buy some plants, stick 'em in some cages, and pretty much call it good. But on a farm there aren't usually hundreds upon hundreds of tomato cages laying around, so you have to build something. And then affix tomatoes to said something, and then repeatedly make needed adjustments throughout the season as those babies grow bigger. So we built something, kinda. Then we laid some red plastic mulch to keep the beds weed-free, in theory, and planted seedlings into it. And then we kind of forgot about the tomatoes for a while... But hey, cut us some slack, we were focusing on plants that are either making food to be harvested right now or crops that would surely be lost without immediate attention. And gosh darnitt, before we knew it, the tomato hoophouse looked like this:

Specks of red plastic still visible, but a 4-foot solid sea of green. The aisle ways flush with weeds totally digging the Amazonian climate we've had as of late. We had no choice but to rip those gigantic jerks out by hand. Panicked at the thought that this very same thing could happen again if we dared to look away for a minute (or a month) we decided to permanently smother those weeds with a seemingly enormous amount of cardboard. We broke down and tore apart anything close to resembling a box and laid it down in the aisles. It actually looks kinda cool-

albeit unfinished. We were only able to scrounge up enough cardboard to cover 2 and a half of the 5 aisles. Alas, in times of war, some mission details are overlooked prior to engagement. And sure, we left half the aisles totally exposed, but at least we weakened the threat of total weed takeover.
Then as we were tidying up the few weeds that appeared here and there through any and every hole in the plastic mulch I noticed some strange, blackish, pellet-y stuff under one of the plants. I showed it to Todd, who said he wasn't sure, he'd seen it before and every time he panics and thinks its eggs or poop from tobacco hornworms, but he hasn't seen any hornworms so he doesn't think we have them. And then his eyes got real big and he said “YES WE DO! LOOK AT THIS *EXPLETIVE*!” And that was our first hornworm siting, about a week ago. Since then we have found more and more each day, and they are some beasts of destruction. Numerous plants have had much of their leaves stripped off, and many an unripened tomato has been chomped on. Look at the size of these guys-

They can do some serious damage. So they must go. So far, our plan of attack is to hunt them down following trails of poop/eggs or eaten plants, rip them off, and stomp on them.

War ain't pretty.
-meagan