My first worm and other concerns...please advise.

First let me thank everyone on this board for their kind support in helping me blunder my way through my first veggie garden. I know I've been overly anxious at times, but everyone has been very patient and kind. Now I ask for just a little more of that hospitality in tackling this newest (and ickiest) problem.

I noticed some scat on my tomato plant today. It's probably been there for a while, but I haven't really "looked" at my plant, other than watering it, in a long time. So I grabbed a couple of chopsticks (my de-bugger of choice) and went looking. Found a few chomp holes, a few dead wormy looking things (don't know if the heat killed them or if it was the creepy looking green spider I found...but I let the spider live, just in case) and after a few minutes of inspection, spotted a green lump on the underside of one leaf. So I used to chopsticks to pry the nasty little thing off. It was bright, leaf green with a paler stripe going down its body and a "horn" looking thing on one end. *shudder* Hate bugs!

Leaves look o.k. on my plant. I don't think they were there too long, or maybe just the one, because I only saw one or two leaves that had been chewed upon. I'd prefer not to use pesticides if I don't have to, but if ya'll think there's a high chance of reinfection I'll go right now to Walmart and pick something up.

As per my cucumber plant, things have gone from bad to worse. I posted earlier (can't remember if it was on the veggie board though) about some dead areas showing up on my cucumber plant. Someone suggested that it might be sunburn. I thought that it was became very careful to water without splashing on the leaves and during late night or early morning, but it's gotten worse. Now the condition is affecting the fruit as well. Here's a picture of the leaves. I'm starting to wonder now if it's sunscald because the fruit have become affected as well and they're sheltered by the leaves. Picture of the fruit will be listed below as well.

Here is picture of fruit.

Welp, the worm on your tomato plant is a tomato hornworm. Unless you have a serious infestation of them just hand-picking (or chopstick picking) will suffice. (And don't kill them, just toss them aside so their natural predators will lay their eggs in them, paracitizing them and in the process creating more predators of the worm.)

If you have a heavy infestation, a dust or spray of Bt will do the trick.

As for the cukes, it could be anything from squash bugs to aphids to bacterial/fungal. Not able to help you with that just by looking at the picture.

Shoe.

mix about a half cup each of vinigar, houshold amonia, and molasas in a gallon of water, water the cuke with it and see if it does anything. the tomatoe would like the same thing. anything that's blooming and setting fruit.

Watch for more of the horn worms. Usually there are one or two lurking around. If you let them have a couple of days, they can eat all the leaves off your plants before you know it. Since they are so large, they're pretty easy to see and pick off, and they don't seem to populate in large numbers. But you have to be on your toes and catch them before they strip your plants naked.

I broke down today and bought some OrthoMax. I swore I wasn't going to use pesticides, but have decided to leave the organic gardening to the Newmans (whose produce I absolutely love).

I just can't bear to watch my first crop die. And my cuke plant is so far gone (with only 40% of its leaves unaffected by this horrible yellowing) that I can't afford to try and narrow it down to a specific pest.

And now I've just noticed that my sweet basil (which was growing like an absolute weed) has chomp holes and scat all over it. One of the stems has actually yellowed and I think that particular plant is unsalvagable. I swear everything looked normal no less than two days ago. Talk about overachievers! Little devils. Where's a chicken when you need one? Luckily it seems like they don't have a real fondness for either oregano, rosemary, or mint cause they've left those alone.