Burnet Farmers & Crafts Market

06/18/2026

06/18/2026

06/17/2026

A big tomato hornworm can strip a branch faster than you'd believe. Your plant looks fine at noon. By dawn it's bare stems.

The reason you never catch them in the act: they're the exact green of a tomato stem, and by midday they tuck flat against it, nearly invisible. Daytime scouting walks right past them.

🍅 What you're looking for:

Two species hit tomatoes — both called "hornworm," both just as destructive:
- Tomato hornworm (Manduca quinquemaculata): V-shaped white chevrons on the sides, dark horn at the rear.
- To***co hornworm (Manduca sexta): straight diagonal white stripes, red horn.

Both reach about 4 inches, both perfectly stem-colored.

Method 1 — flashlight at dusk.
Walk the rows with a light held low along the stems. Don't hunt the worm — hunt the frass. Black, BB-sized pellets on the leaves are the tell; they drop straight down from wherever it's feeding. Find the pellets, trace straight up, and the worm's on the stem above.

Method 2 — UV blacklight after dark.
Hornworm skin glows bright green under ultraviolet light. In full dark, sweep a UV flashlight from the top of each plant to the base and the worm lights up against the foliage — unmistakable. A cheap UV light clears twenty plants in ten minutes, and it's the single most efficient way to find them.

Hand-pick into soapy water.
Grip firmly and pull — they hold tight but come off clean. Drop them in a jar of soapy water. Check both sides of every main stem and under the big leaf clusters where they hide by day.

Leave the parasitized ones.
If a hornworm is studded with small white rice-grain cocoons on its back, braconid wasps have already gotten it — the larvae fed inside and are pupating on its skin. It's done, even if it's still moving. Leave it on the plant: the wasps that emerge will go on to hunt more hornworms across your garden. Killing it kills your best ally.

A note on Bt.
Bacillus thuringiensis kills any caterpillar that eats treated leaves — including swallowtails on your parsley and other natives nearby. Hand-pick first, and reach for Bt only if an infestation outruns what you can pull by hand.

🌿 Scout at dusk. Find the frass. Trace up. Pick. Done.

06/16/2026

We’ve reached 1000 followers! Thank you for supporting our local vendors and all their hard work!

06/15/2026

No one knows the program at His Joshua House better than Executive Director Donald Wayne Thompson. Dr. Thompson started at His Joshua House as a participant in their recovery program in 2018 after, in his words, a “20-year spiral”.

That spiral included multiple visits to rehab programs, mental health institutions, and prison before he found a path and a safe place to recover and learn how to address the challenges of becoming and remaining sober at His Joshua House. After completing the program, he became a volunteer on nights and weekends around his full-time job. He became the first former resident to serve on the Board of Directors, where he was elected Vice-President, and then President, of the Board. He was then asked to move into the Executive Director position, which he has faithfully served for the past two years. He is a living testament to the residents that His Joshua House and the programs offered there work.

To support His Joshua House, please consider attending Freedom Feast, their fundraising event of the year. Event and raffle tickets may be purchased by contacting Executive Director, Donald Thompson, at 830-953-0769 or emailing him at [email protected]. You may also contact Board Member, Paula Moody, at 737-284-8690 or come by the Lake Buchanan/Inks Lake Chamber of Commerce/Visitor Center starting on Friday, June 19th - Friday, June 25th to purchase your event and raffle tickets!

06/15/2026

Saturday June 20th

06/13/2026

Happy National Dragonfly Day! Did you know there are over 150 different types of dragonflies in Texas? That's almost half of the 327 known species in North America!

Our Texas Master Naturalist logo is the Cyrano Darner (Nasiaeschna pentacantha)—named after the literary character Cyrano de Bergerac for its long forehead and distinct nose.

To learn more about the Cyrano Darner and the history of our logo, visit: https://txmn.tamu.edu/chapter-resources/tmn-brand-marketing/

*The dragonfly pictured is a Halloween pennant*