The tomato horn worm is the biggest pest your tomato plants will have! Knowing what they look like will go a long way in keeping them off your tomatoes.
The easiest way to know when one has moved onto one of your plants is when you notice leaves being eaten off the stems. They will also eat into the side of your tomatoes.
Tomato horn worms have large appetites. Once you see the signs, start looking very carefully on the bottom of each leaf stem until you spot the worm.
The best way to get rid of them is to remove the horn worm by hand. It can be killed it by cutting it in half, or by smashing. Just beware that it will make a bit of a mess this way.
If you find a worm that has white sacks hanging onto its back, do NOT remove it! Leave it right where it is on your tomato plant.
The white sacks are the eggs of the parasitic wasp, one of nature’s beneficial insects. These eggs survive by sucking the life out of the horn worm. Once these eggs hatch, the wasp will go out looking for more horn worms to lay eggs into and kill.
2 Comments
Haley
August 31, 2011 at 6:58 pmThank you for telling me I thought they where the eggs of the worm. Do we put them back in the garden!!!??? Let me know and agian thank you so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
jstutzman
September 17, 2011 at 7:36 pmIf the eggs are not on the worm, they will not hatch. When you see a worm like this, just let it alone and the eggs will do their job.