It’s official: I’ve given up organic gardening. In the end, I was brought down by this hideous worm. It’s called a tomato hornworm, due to the giant horn on it’s rear, but I found out firsthand that it doesn’t just like tomatoes. Oh, no! This baby loves all manner of pepper plants, zucchini and cucumber, and even my Italian parsley and mint. My precious mint!! Several of these nightmare caterpillars—which my brother and I used to call Thorny Butts when we were kids—took over my patio garden and devastated it.

My parents are both master gardeners. The property surrounding their house looks like some Utopian dreamscape, lush with flowers and tropical plants, fruit trees, and an expansive vegetable garden. They somehow manage this on top of raising like 30+ chickens for eggs, maintaining a pond house, and a billion other things; they own a lot of land.

Their knack for growing things has clearly not extended to me. Honestly, if it wasn’t the deadly Thorny Butts, it would have been the daily watering that killed my interest in gardening. Or the fact that I had so many pretty cucumbers, but they all tasted bitter.

I’ll miss all the fresh herbs. Usually I can grow those just fine when they aren’t surrounded by other vegetables that attract the caterpillar invasion. However, apart from the rosemary, they didn’t survive the onslaught. Next year, if I try this again, I’m going to douse everything in non-organic bug spray. I’m already dying slowing from all the grocery store pesticides; what’s a little poison at home?

#gardenfail