The garden seeks balance

The pests have really gotten to me this year, but it turns out that some of them were on my side.

While trimming tomato plants the other day, I came across another tomato hornworm. This one, however, was having a very bad day.

The white things on this hornworm are the larval stage of a parasitic wasp. If it had been earlier in the year, I would've left the worm so that those wasps could take care of any other hornworms on my tomatoes. However, since the tomatoes are about done and it's time to cut them down, this guy ended up in the yard waste like the last one I found.

I'm very conflicted about hornworms because I love butterfly moths. Also, I have never had extensive damage to tomatoes because of hornworms. I read once that cardinals eat hornworms, and I have often witnessed cardinals spending time by my tomatoes over the years, so maybe my bird feeding habit has been beneficial in more ways than I thought.