Tomato Caterpillar Alert

If you visit one of your mature tomato plants to find
many leaves munched down to mere stems, look carefully at the undersides of the intact leaves and stems for hornworms.

Both tomato and tobacco hornworms (they have different
markings) are actually caterpillars of moths commonly known as sphinx, hummingbird, or hawk moths. Hornworms, no matter the type, voraciously feed on leaves of nightshades—tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, petunia, tobacco and other plants in the Solanaceae family.

Small leaf holes are the first sign. As hornworms feed
and grow to a mature length of three to four inches, they consume leaves at alarming rates. Hand-pick and squish any you find except those carrying tiny, white, oblong forms on their back. These are cocoons of one of the garden-beneficial insects that parasitize—or kill—hornworms.

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