When it comes to garden pests, the sight of a tomato hornworm is one of the most distinctive and memorable in our opinion. While not actually worms, but in fact caterpillars, hornworms (both the tomato and tobacco hornworm) are one of the biggest and scariest caterpillars with a giant horn on their rear end to scare away potential predators.
Hornworms are voracious eaters, and can seem to eat through tomato plants almost overnight. The most obvious damage will be chewed leaves, and sometimes they will eat the fruit as well. Hornworms blend in very well with the foliage and can be difficult to spot. However if you keep an eye on your plants while looking for droppings or missing stems on your plants they are relatively easy to control.
Hornworms can be controlled by handpicking the larva, rototilling the soil after before or after harvest to kill off overwintering larvae, and encouraging parasitic wasps to feed on the hornworms by planting dill and marigolds.
A final option is to use the organic pesticide Bt aka Bacillus thurigiensis kurstaki. This chemical only affects caterpillars and only when they eat the sprayed part of the plant. It won’t harm beneficial insects and won’t harm other predators that eat the Bt caterpillars.
Cover Image by Mike Lewinski, used under its Creative Commons license.
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