EWWWW!!!

I hate these guys and can't stand to touch them but my method of snipping them in half with my pruning shears seems almost as gross. How do you deal with the dreaded fat n' gross tomato munchers?

Tomato Hornworm (yuk)

AAAACCCCKKKKKK!!!!!!

They are sooo NASTY. You think they're bad on the maters, try going thru a couple of acres of tobacco (tobacco hornworm - same thing) and picking them off while you top the plants - GROSS
I grab them with the tips of my fingers, fling them on the ground and stomp - talk about gross! and they get so huge. Would only recommend doing on an empty stomach : )

I saw my first one today. I remembered them from a crop of containter tomatoes I grew years ago, but I didn't see them until they had stripped the plants almost bare. I took a stick and forced him into an empty gatorade bottle and he's now on his way to municipal waste.

He had a ton of little white rice-shaped things on him. What was that?

The white rice things are like the egg sacks or cocoons of a parasitic wasp. If you leave the worms they will eventually stop moving/eating and then turn black and die. I usually try to leave those as long as there isn't a whole lot of very active ones.

What is the advantage of leaving them and their wasps over just getting rid of the whole gang?

1 infected caterpillar will create many predatory wasps which will then infect and kill that many more cats,.....

Yes, and these are not wasp that are going to harm you. They are tiny. Not like the paper wasps.

If you let the tomatoe worms live they will end up going under ground for the winter and if they survive the cold they will eventually emerge as humming bird moths. And they are really cool!!

Anne

Yah I knew they turn into Hummingbird Moths but I like my tomatoes better. ;)

My point was, that you can relocate something that bothers you, rather than kill it. The purpose of not using insecticides is to not unbalance nature as it was intended. If you use other means of destroying insects and worms then the end result is the same. Some people find it very easy to kill something ugly that scares them but then finds it equally deplorable to kill a butterfly that is beautiful. It's called human nature.

The uglies in the world have gotten a bad rap. If you let them live long enough they may become beneficial. I like my tomatoes too, but not enough to kill for and my tomatoes always turn out wonderful. And in case your wondering I don't relocate them to your garden.


Anne

Anne I think my "find n' snip" method is very environmentally safe. ;)