Find The Critter

Can you find the critter in the above picture?!

This summer I've noticed quite a bit more of the plant leaves in and around my yard, and in my veggie gardens, being eaten.  Plants from my peppers above to my sunflowers, basil, broccoli, hostas, butterfly bushes, harlequin glorybower, etc.

I've been finding more critters than in the past on the above plants. Critters like; Japanese beetles, cabbage moths, aphids, slugs, and others too.  They've all been very destructive too, alas!

I am not a fan of using pesticides and chemicals in general, instead I try other methods like sprinkling Diatomaceous Earth around the base of the plants, beer in saucers, sprinkling spicy\hot spices on leaves, spray plants with warm water with Dawn dish soap, etc.  Some of these work, some not so much, however, the one that never fails in squashing those I can get a hold of between my fingers!

The tomato hornworm caterpillar youngster below, the critter dining on my peppers, was small compared to the size it would have become had I not found it and it was left to continue gorging.  In the past I would feed these dudes to my chickens who would gobble them up.  I would do the same when skimming my pool, too offer the insects to the chickens!  This time of year the pool is a magnet for beetles, oodles of them in there all the time, which takes time to skim, stop and squash each one but that's what I do.  It's a war!

Ah, the joys of gardening!