Spent the last couple weeks in Oregon and Washington, and came home to notice a lot of leaves missing from an Early Girl tomato plant. Figured a hornworm had done some munching, but when I went to find it I found a second, and then a third, and then I kept finding more until I’d thrown this many on the ground beside the plant:
On one plant! Remember how big these guys are too — each one is the size of your finger, or bigger.
They were in heaven until I showed up. Now they are in the stomachs of the neighbors’ chickens.
UPDATE: Over the last couple days, I’ve found six more! That’s twenty hornworms on one tomato plant, and counting. And the plant is still growing like gangbusters in this late summer / early fall heat.
Have you found any “organic” way to keep the horn worms away? I’ve had so much trouble getting a harvest from my small tomato plants before these guys take over.. super frustrating!
What I do is keep an eye out for munched leaves or the hornworms’ dark little poops, and then I can find them before they do much damage. I either pull them off the plant and feed them to my chickens or I chop them in half with pruning shears right there on the vine. Pretty “organic,” eh?