WOW! I am so glad that I found this forum! I live in Augusta, GA and visited my Dad in Clay Co, AL this past week. We were looking at his tomato plants and found 2 tomato worms, which had the parasitic cocoons on them. I picked the worms off the plants and brushed the cocoons off of them. Dad wanted to squish them, but I said that I was going to take them home and raise them and teach our 4 year old son about metamorphosis. I wasn't sure about how to go about keeping them, UNTIL I found this forum! We cut alot of leaves and stalks for them to chew on until I can get a plant for them to live on. They are about 2 inches long, and fat. I had no idea that they bury themselves in dirt to go into their pupa state. SO again I am glad I started researching and found this forum. I was kinda bummed that we won't be able to watch them form cocoons but I am happy to know that they will turn into these particular moths, which I didn't know what they turned into before. So with that, I am wondering how will I know when they will go into the dirt, I am planning on putting them in the fridge while they are in the dirt so they won't come out to early and die. My only other issue is going to be we are moving in Missouri in late March early April and I am wondering if they will survive the move? Is there anything I should do to protect them during the move? When should I expect them to be ready to make their grand appearance? This is the 1st time ever doing this.So an extra pointers are welcome! ALSO I had read that some of you had the caterpillars with the parasites on them and you left them alone. Do you think mine will be OK since I took them off? Thanks! Kim

If I can give you a little advice, if you find holes in ANY of your maters mix a full gallon in a garden sprayer and spray them all. Also, if your growing cukes you'll need to do the same thing at first sign of any worms and make sure you douse the small new-growth leaves and buds well. AND, for squash you can't wait until you see them, a maintenance program of spraying at least twice a week, especially on the male flowers will improve your success with fruit production. Disclaimer - lots of folks here love cats and so do I. I put the flowers in the front yard for them and grow the veggies in the back yard. In our hot humid environment I can't control the cats in the veggies w/o doing it this way so it a necessary evil...don't hate me for wanting a decent yield with my veggie crops. Tom

they say to plant ghost peppers at least three feet apart. this is my first time growing ghost peppers and after 20 years, what i found is that if you plant ghost peppers and all your other peppers at least one foot apart the leaves will touch and start shading the lower leaves. causing lower temps. bigger faster growers in the back and smaller slow growers in the front. i live in central texas near temple and waco and the heat has been in mid 90s. i have been getting ghost peppers on the vine but at a slow pace. we had a couple days when the temp were in the high 80 due to rain and the ghost peppers took off. the humidity helps also. it seems the plant needs so many hours of heat and humidity to get adjusted then when it gets adjusted it will take off. i have one ghost pepper plant in a far corner of the garden with no other pepper plants around and i do not have a single pepper on it. shade cloth will help but you still need that one day of weather in the high 80 and lower 90 or high 70. one rainy day will give you that. dont give up on it, just shade it and one day you will walk outside and see a pepper started. your not that far north of me. i never had hornworms on my peppers, but i found one today. caught it in time to keep it from eating the habs. dont get impatient add a shade cloth they sell them at home depot and use calcium to keep new growth on it.

I watched the big moth lay the eggs. She flits around fast touching her rear here and there. My impression was that she was giving her offspring whole plants or at least plenty of space between eggs. There are wasps and flies that feed on them. I expected to find hornworms but I have only found one. My garden is dry and I have lots of red wasps coming to a stock tank in the garden. I have seen the tachinid flies attack big hornworms before and that is interesting to watch. I never see the wasps that make the little white cocoons.