
How to Identify and Get Rid of Tomato Hornworms
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If the garden isn't too dry, touched with a very small flame from a charcoal grill lighter dispatches them quickly.
Being a photographer of the Monarch Butterfly, I often see the Hummingbird moth without knowing what it does. Thanks to the Old Farmers Almanac articles, I have a deep disrespect for this insect. It is amazing to see how it flies around the milkweed blossoms. Hard to photograph.
I do container gardening. The previous year I ruined the lives of over 40 Hornworms, they about ruined my tomatoes. They seem to appear overnight as I water the plants often and could have noticed them earlier.
I usually till the soil and add more nutrients. This past summer I destroyed five. Observing the leaf chewing indicates to look closely. A neighbor has had this Cat bite him. I don't let them chew on me and clip the branch they are on and put 216 lbs on them. If they didn't bite, I'd use them for fish bait.
I find taking some small snippers outside with me when I check my tomato plants is my best option. Upon locating a caterpillar, I just snip it in half instead of grabbing it off the stem and placing it on a hard surface to squash. It’s also much faster. I then see wasps coming to feast on what’s left of the caterpillars.
I've been checking the plants every couple of nights with the UV light ever since I put them in the ground. They glow nice and bright. I've gotten at least 5 of them while small and plants are doing great!
Noticed several of our tomato plants' leaves "crinkling up" ... examined our 14 tomato plants closely, discovered 7 tomato hornworms - had never seen these little green buggers before. If we had chickens, we'd feed them the hornworms, but we don't, so the immediate remedy was/is to pluck them off the plant they are on and squish them, straight away.
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