Attack of the Tomato Hornworm !

While helping Eve in the garden today I heard her shriek and jump back about two feet. I quickly went over to investigate and asked what happened... she pointed at the tomato pland and just went "Ahhhh!"

At first I didn't see it... then I noticed a two and a half inch caterpillar munching away on our plant. After looking some more we saw some dark colored pellets and wondered what they were... I had the thought that they might be droppings and looked just above them... another caterpillar!

All in all I found three of them, put them into a container and went to research them on the internet. At first I thought they may turn into some beautiful butterfly... but no. Just a brown moth that lays more eggs and wipes out your garden. Bummer.

So... after reading some more we found that little wasps (harmless to people) will lay eggs in them and kill them. So we will put them outside in a container to see if the wasps will find them. If so... the pupae will be kept around to kill off any new caterpillars that we may have missed. That's organic gardening without pesticides.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Tomato Hornworm
• Green Tomato Worm
• Gardening
• Ugly Bug
• Pests
• Green Horn Worm

[askjerry]

@sugarbunny49 We found three of them... then a week later we found another four smaller ones. We haven't found any more... sure are big!

[sugarbunny49]

My husband just found this caterpillar for the first time yesterday,on the road, and we live in the Hudson Valley of New York State. He asked me to try to identify it after we measured it (4 inches in length and very thick), so I looked on YouTube, and that's the same critter we found. Thanks for the info.