Caterpillar day!

So apparently I didn't get the memo. The longest day of the year appeared to also be the annual pesky garden caterpiller emergence day. A brief stroll through the vegetable garden the other morning revealed no less than a hundred little wormy caterpillars of various sizes and shapes. Needless to say, a bout of OCD and a need to adhere to organic gardening practices led me to spend at least an hour squishing worm upon worm upon worm, and by worm I mean caterpillar.



Those little bastards skeletonized my currant bushes!
Ooh. On top of that there were weird little wormies on my tomatillos that were mysteriously excreting browngreen slime on their backs. It was probably a predator deterrant but I didn't bat an eye at it. (Okay, I did hesitate briefly, and uttered a few words like "gross" and "blechk"...)
The poor tomatillos weren't even skeletonized. They were just little stalks.
Ah well. It's a fact of veggie gardening. The heat hits and the veggies flourish, but so do the nasty creepy crawlies too. I am an avid advocate for insect and arthropod rights, and I have saved many a spider, ant and millipede, but don't $&@% with my garden. :)