The dog days of summer are here and this is where you seem to find many issues with your plants. It s hot, and the monsoon season in most areas of the southwest are sketchy at best. And even though the days are getting shorter they seem longer because it s hot early in the morning, and still hot in the evening. And really, who wants to putz in the garden when it s hot all the time.
Unfortunately this is the time when real common problems can happen with your garden and need to be treated. Unless you re a king or queen of fertilizing, your blooms will diminish quite a bit when it s hot out. But when there are holes in the potential flower buds, that s the illustrious Budworm happily munching on your buds from the inside out. And over there is the lovely, huge, green Tomato Hornworm that decimates your tomato plants. Oh, joy! But however icky it may sound, there are easy and safe treatments at hand.
What to do what to do? Well, here s a couple of big words for you: bacillus thuringiensis. Yeah, say that three times fast. Or you might just call it Bt. This is a spore forming bacterium found in most soil conditions around the world. The two common nursery names you ll look for and find this under are Dipel Dust and Thuricide.
The Bt needs to be digested by the caterpillar to work and it s quite an impressive thing to think about or if you re a weaker sort perhaps it s just plain old gross. The bacterium produces crystal proteins that are toxic to most creepy crawlies in the caterpillar families. As the insect ingests the toxins they dissolve within the high pH of the gut and become active. Ultimately they produce spores within the insect causing death, but your geraniums, petunias and tomatoes will love you for it.
Read: Dog days of summer – Part 2
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I have read that parasitic wasps are a good natural control for tomato worms. Are these types of wasps native to our area? If so, are there ways to attract them to the garden?
Also, after the tomato plant’s leaves have been stripped by the worm, can it recover and still be able to produce?
Claudia,
Sometimes you’ll see the white sacks of the wasp already attached to the
hornworm, in which case leave it alone so the wasp can do its job. I can get
the wasp shipped here; however, the use of the wasp as a treatment is much
slower than Bt in this particular case.
On to the plant…if the plant is completely stripped it may take a while
for it to recover, however, the flower typically comes from a separate union
than the leaves anyway so you may get flowering and tomatoes even if the
plant looks ravaged.