Tuesday, September 8, 2009

And, Four Ripe Tomatoes!

In my last blog post, I answered the question "What To Do With All Of Those Tomatoes?!" by offering a delicious and EASY recipe for Margherita Pizza!

Well, all of this tomato talk got me thinking about one of the illustrations I did for the children's book "Teddy, The Hungry Little Bear". It's a fruity counting book that I illustrated for the American Literacy Corporation. Quite the fun project!

Here, Teddy is ready to eat "Four Ripe Tomatoes."



The colorful illustration even depicts a tomato hornworm happily making its' way among the branches.



If you find a tomato hornworm in your garden that has bunches of white egg pouches on it's back, it's actually a good thing. Although the tomato hornworm devours many garden plants, the parasitic wasps lays eggs on the tomato hornworm caterpillar. When the wasp eggs hatch, the young feed on the caterpillar...whallah...natural pest control!

If you are interested in the book, it can be purchased from the catalog page of the American Literacy Corporation website (www.superreader.org) It makes a great gift for a child's birthday, and a super stocking stuffer for the upcoming holidays!

2 comments:

  1. Very nice Cheryl. Love the illustration. Teddy's thinkiing these tomatoes look good enough to eat! The hookworm closeup is precious and good gardening tip about the wasp eggs.

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  2. Cheryl these are soooo sweet--they put an immediate smile on my face!! Love Teddy! Great idea as stocking stuffers or birthday gift for young children! Interesting info on tomato hornworm and wasps!

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