05 August 2010

bugs!

Anyone know what this curious insect is? I found it out in the garden walking on a tomato stem. I don't know if he's friend or foe. Something has been eating bites and halves of my Cherry Tomatoes, and if it's him I want him gone! (I keep suspecting a tomato hornworm but haven't found one yet).
Here's a picture of this bug on the window, when he flew away from me.
My kid caught a big grasshopper today. I tried to take a photo of him in the glass jar, but it was all wavy because she used a mason jar, with the writing on the glass. I think it looks pretty cool, though!
Here's a better shot, climbing on a twig.
The cucumber beetle war is not in my favor now. I wonder if I should spray again, or if it did any good at all? Yesterday I caught 18 beetles, missed three or four which flew away. Today I got 50! with six escaping. I think perhaps a new generation has hatched recently, as a lot of them are small. And I keep missing the bronze-colored beetles on the Green Beans, when they drop to the ground I can't see them well.

3 comments:

chrisa511 said...

OH man..one year we had TONS of those little critters!! I have no idea what they are, but as far as I know, they don't do any damage. They just swarmed around our plants. They especially liked our tomatoes and we'd find them around the squash too. They disappear in the evening.

I wonder if it's the grasshoppers doing the damage to your tomato plants? I started getting tons of little grasshoppers munching on my tomato leaves but I didn't have it in me to kill them :/ They're just too cute. So I'd move them to the front yard :p

And I wish those cucumber beetles would leave you alone!!!

Jeane said...

Glad to know that first bug doesn't hurt plants. I think he's pretty cool-looking and would be a shame to squash him! I actually haven't seen any grasshoppers on the tomatoes- there's 'hoppers and crickets all over every other bit of the yard, it seems. And whatever's on the tomatoes is only eating the fruit, leaving the foliage alone.

Jeane said...

I've finally identified that bug, thanks to another garden blog. It's the leaf-footed bug, and damages tomato plants.