Well, hello there

We found this in the garden.

That is a very LARGE tobacco hornworm. This explains why I kept finding half-eaten green tomatoes on the top of my plants. I think this one guy was doing all the damage. As big as he is, he was really hard to see. I only found him because he was ON the tomato I intended to pick.

I scoured the tomatoes, but found no others. We did have one last year, but it was smaller and covered in wasp eggs (yay for companion gardening!) I planted flowers that attract a particular wasp that kills these worms, and with the exception of this guy, it seems to be working.

He's nearly ready to become a moth, so I didn't have the heart to kill him. I just put him on the other end of the yard with a pile of fallen green tomatoes that he could eat for a day or two.