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market-farming - Re: staking tomatoes

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Subject: Market Farming

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  • From: Alex McGregor <waldenfarm AT sprintmail.com>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: staking tomatoes
  • Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 12:02:15 -0500


For all you looking for a natural tomato hornworm control:

Each year, we see a small amount of tomato hornworm damage on some tomatoes
each
morning. We do a complete inspection of a plant when we see the bites
missing,
but hardly ever find the worms.

This was a complete mystery until an apprentice skipped his morning jog and
went
down to the gardens very early. He saw a pair of kingbirds with their young
in an
apple tree. He told us the adults would swoop down into the tomato beds and
grab
a worm. They were feeding these to their screaming babies. I confirmed his
observation the next morning by getting out there at dawn. Amazing!

We never suffer more than a few bites out of each plant, but we do find an
occasional worm to hand pick. Some of those we find have egg cases on them
and we
leave them and watch them become sluggish and shrivel up. I think the secret
to
our success is having a good bird habitat with lots of native plants for food,
wild areas and no chemicals.

Alex McGregor
Walden Farm





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