You’ve been tirelessly nurturing your tomato plants, they are healthy and happy and you have dozens of beautiful tomatoes just waiting to ripen. You’re already dreaming of salsa and pasta sauce and all the gorgeous garden to table salads that will be had. You go out to admire your handywork and boom a whole branch is missing overnight leaving an entire section dangling and shriveled. If you’re one of the unlucky gardeners to get a visit from these little tomato terrorists don’t despair if you act quickly your tomatoes can be saved!!!
These little demon caterpillars are master hiders and can be found easiest around dusk. Although these pests are small they have a mighty appetite and can devour very large portions of your tomato plant in one evening but all that food has to go somewhere and they tend to leave lovely piles of hornworm droppings falling onto the leaves and branches below them.
A good way to track these pests during the day is to check the leaves below the decimated branches. They like to slumber away underneath the leaves until their nightly feedings. If you act quickly you can eradicate hornworms before they inflict permanent damage. Happy gardening!
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