"Why You Lil' Sunuva...."

I've seen a lot of little "guests" in the garden this summer. Ants, the occassional slug near the cucumbers, and even a couple preying mantis taking care of some other pests on the okra plants.

But when I saw a couple of green tomatoes gnawed on at the top of the Marglobe plant (over 6' high)...I knew my little squirrel buddy was not the culprit.

Then today, while I was trimming off some dead branches on my tomato plants, I came across two of these nasty little creatures. And after a little research, I discovered the little brown droppings on the leaves I've seen for the past couple weeks should have tipped me off. Ladies and gents, I give you the tomato hornworm caterpillar.



It gets it's name in part because of the horn-shaped red things on its last section (right side of pic).

So are these caterpillars friend or foe? Well, the answer is foe. They enjoy eating tomato plant leaves. And with a little Google research, I discovered they go after the fruit in July and August. So there's the answer to my half-eaten tomato mystery.

There are a couple ways to take care of them. Apparently nature takes care of business when a certain type of wasp will lay eggs on the hornworm and eventually the hatched larvae will eat away at the caterpillar. But I don't have the time or leaf capacity to wait for that to happen. So I went with the technique best for small gardens.....I just picked them off. Unfortunately, as I was picking one off the Roma plant, he fell deeper into the plant and I could not find him. But fear not, I will find him come hell or high water.

There's also a pesticide that takes care of the little buggers, but I'm going to shy away from that chemical option. Let's just hope there aren't a lot more hiding from me. I prefer my tomatoes get eaten by two-legged folks...not ten-legged ones.