The tomato hornworm can take the joy out of growing tomatoes

I try to love all creatures large and small.

Well, maybe not love, but at least to value them for their place in the grand scheme of things.

I’m one of the few people I know who likes snakes, spiders and bats. They are our friends. They eat harmful insects and try to stay out of our way as much as possible.

As long as ants stay outside and function as nature’s garbage collectors, I’m all right with them. I regularly put down Grants Kills Ants so they will understand their boundaries.

Invading flies I figure will be spider food in a short time and invading mice will become cat toys very quickly. It’s the circle of life.

But tomato hornworms are evil. They have no redeeming qualities.

If you aren't familiar with them, they start off as eggs laid by a moth on tomato plants. They hatch into tiny green worms with an incredibly voracious appetite. In just a few hours they strip the leaves off the stalks of a tomato plant, eventually destroying the plant if you don’t stop them.

The problem is that you don’t know they are there until the bare stalks appear and even then you can be looking right at one and not see it because they look like part of the tomato plant.

After you clip off the bare stalks, it’s time to go after the worm with the shears. But you can examine the plant until you feel like an idiot wasting away the day and still not see the worm.They have suction feet so they can be on top, underneath, or over in another area of the plant.

Sometimes you have to just give up and let it continue to ravish the plant until it grows big enough to spot. And eventually it will.

They grow up to five inches of ugliness. This is a photo of one in a hand. And you can bet it isn’t my hand.

 

And yet…

There is something sadly vulnerable about the way the tomato hornworm just sits there munching away, with no fight or flight ability, totally oblivious to its fate.

There is something amazing about the way it got there. Somehow a male and a female worm had to survive into the adult moth stage, find each other, fall in love and mate. And then the mother had to find a tomato plant to lay her eggs on, even finding tomato plants in areas where they have never been grown before.

Of course that is not enough to keep me from snipping them in two parts.

I love tomatoes.

Comments

[Lynne]

OMGoodness I had a horn worm so big one year that as I brushed by it I swear it said, "May I help you?" Scared the living day lights out of me. It was so big disposing of it felt like I was killing a squirrel. It was just awful.

[threecollie]

That would not be my hand either and I am not so very squeamish. Fortunately we don't generally see too many of them, although when I lived right down the road as a kid they were all over the place. Nasty indeed.

[Sherry in MT]

I agree with threecollie - YUCK! LOL

[MJ]

I love spiders and snakes and bats too ! I "fostered" a bat once - they have very soft fur ! I haven't had to deal with evil tomato worms yet. Jan-I have a live and let live attitude like you, but like you, I'm not sure what I would do if i found these evil creatures chomping my tomato plants ! They might have to die !

[Pamela]

Is there any chance you can plant enough tomatoes to share with the worms? Or would a bigger food supply just cause them to breed more?

[Jerry]

You can dust your plants with a harmless chemical and kill the worms.

[Jan]

Pamela, I don't think they have a sense of honor to stay on their own plants. Besides, they drop into the soil to finish changing to the moth stage. So leaving them alone would be like breeding them  in your own yard. :-)

Jerry, My friend at the nursery told me about a dust that would, how to say this delicately, cause the worm to get constipated and blow itself up. I think the worm would prefer a quick humane death. :-)

[Deb in AZ]

I wonder if they would fall off when sprayed with a soapy insecticide? My DH had fun finding the green worms on plants last year. They are very good with cammo colors! He picked them off and even the hens would not eat the worms. They just ran around and played keep-away.

[Jan]

Maybe the reasons they don't make good food for birds is that they taste the way they look.

[jackie]

I too loathe that little fucker.

[matt]

Okay, so maybe its just me, but I don't like to kill them. If I dust my plants with Seven they fall off and vomit, squirming in agony. I don't like to mash or cut them either. If I see that my plants have leaves missing I look for them and pick them off. Then I sacrifice a few of my leaves, or leaves off a volunteer plant and feed them at home. So far I've only had one make it to adulthood and it had deformed wings. I have not decide whether I will let the moths go or not.