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New Roses, Compost and Grasshoppers Epazote, Gotu Kola and St. John's Wort Central Texas Fall Planting Guide Gardening for Birds and Butterflies How to grow Apples in Central Texas Problems growing Tomatoes in hot weather Herbs and Late Spring Gardening Tips
What are common Shrub Diseases How to care for Holiday Plants How to care for Mother's Day Gifts
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How to Control the Tomato Hornworm You've got a hornworm if you are seeing the tops of your eggplants or late season tomatoes completely stripped of vegetation with only the bare limbs poking into the air. It seems like it happens suddenly and the first thing you think of is a deer's been nibbling, or maybe the leaf cutter ants are on the move again. The hornworm is big (3-4 inches long,) fat, green with white stripes, and sports a redor yellow curved "reverse rhino horn" on his backside. Although perfectly camouflaged, most people overlook them simply because they don't expect to see anything quite so big. The best way to spot a great tomato hornworm is to spray your plants with a mist from the water hose or a garden sprayer and watch for them to move around when the water hits them. Most healthy gardens will be home to only a few, because paper wasps eat the worms when they are small and parasitic wasps insert their eggs under the hornworm's "skin." You will sometimes see hornworms with the white parasitic wasp eggs or even larvae attached to them. The worm will become dinner for the newly hatched parasitic wasps. Obviously, wasps are very beneficial insects. Likewise, black Dirt Daubers, who look like black wasps and make the mud tubes under the eaves of the house or in the barn, are also beneficial. Their main food is black widow and brown recluse spiders. Some folks will "sacrifice" a tomato plant standing alone in the garden and put the hornworms on it to either let the wasp eggs hatch and populate the garden or to let the hornworm pupate into the beautiful, and also gigantic, Sphinx moth, which it will do underground. The Sphinx Moth, also known as the Hummingbird Moth, is a beneficial pollinator. You may see one fluttering around after dark from one moonflower to another drinking nectar with its long proboscis. You might even think it is a hummingbird by its movements and sound. If you've ever seen that one really big moth-so big that you've never forgotten it-under a light on a late summer evening, that would be the Sphinx, or Hummingbird Moth who was once a hornworm wreaking havoc in somebody's tomato patch. What an amazing and beautiful creature, that Great Tomato Hornworm. However, if they are making your garden look like a bone yard, control them with BT or Spinosad, safe to use on vegetables and available at most garden centers or simply pick them off by hand.
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By late spring you should be seeing the really big bugs in your garden. A healthy garden should have a nice balance of ladybugs and aphids, birds, grasshoppers, wasps and caterpillars. However, there are some really big guys that deserve some extra attention because of their tendency to be very destructive. One of them is the Great Tomato Hornworm.
