Perfect Solution for Tomato Hornworm . 100% Organic and Effective!
Have you ever gone out to your tomato plants and found huge amounts of the foliage gone? Have you found massive amounts of your plant leaves just eaten away like the tomato plant version of the cookie monster was in your garden? That, my friends, is the Hornworm Caterpillar, AKA, the Tomato Hornworm. And this tomato caterpillar can decimate a tomato plant overnight.
Thankfully, there’s a really easy way to stop the tomato hornworm from destroying all your tomato plants. Super easy.
Identifying the Tomato Hornworm Caterpillar
I’ve had this experience of finding half my tomato plant gone almost overnight, and it’s devastating, especially if we don’t know what we’re dealing with. And the reason we may not know what is eating our plants is the hornworm caterpillar is really hard to see. The tomato hornworm is camouflaged perfectly when it’s sitting on a branch of our tomato plant just munching away. And they get HUGE, and we STILL can’t see them.
Let me put up a picture to show you. Can you see the hornworm caterpillar?
Caterpillar on Tomato Plant
Can you see it now?
Hornworm Caterpillar
It does help that the background in the picture is my wooden raised bed frame, if it was just more green tomato plant, you can understand how hard they are to find. Here is another one. I told you they get big. See the horn on its tail section?
Caterpillar with Horn on Tail
But what if we can’t see them? What do we do? We can at least find the general area they are in by looking for their droppings. And the hornworm caterpillar poops A LOT. So, if you look below where your plant is damaged, you should be able to see the droppings. They are small black uneven lumps about the size of ¼ of a pea. It looks like this.
Tomato Hornworm Droppings
After you have located the droppings of the tomato hornworm, you slowly, very slowly, look up the plant until you can locate one.
I know, that’s all great but what if you STILL can’t find them. Well, these guys will glow in the dark when a blue light is shined on them. Some gardeners go out at night with a blue light/flashlight and inspect their plants for these guys and pull them off one by one. But this is all just too much work anyway. There is a better way. But first, one more question to answer.
Can’t We Just Pick Off the Tomato Hornworm When We Find Them?
The answer to that question is yes. We can just pick them off one by one, but there are two problems with that method, at least for me. Problem number 1 is, they just give me the “Heebie-Jeebies” and I would really rather not pick them up or touch them at all. Even worse, killing them by squashing them? Nahh, not for me.
Problem Number 2 is this. If we wait until they are already established on our plant, chances are, they are going to do some serious damage before we actually locate them.
Oh, and I don’t want to have to go out to my garden every night with a blue light and look for them. What if I have more exciting plans?
So here’s the deal.
We Can Prevent the Hornworm Caterpillar from Doing ANY Damage to Our Tomato Plants!
That’s right. We do not have to live with the tomato hornworm. We don’t have to look for their poop or go to our garden at night with a blue light to find them and pick them off.
Enter, from stage right, Bacillus Thuringiensis (Bt).
Bacillus Thuringiensis (Bt)
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“Bacillus thuringiensis, often abbreviated as Bt, is a naturally-occurring bacteria that makes pests sick when they eat it. ... Bt is therefore one of the safest natural pesticides you can use in terms of controlling caterpillar pests of vegetables or fruits without harming beneficial insects.”
This product makes gardening and, especially, growing tomatoes, much easier. It is 100% organic, it won’t hurt any other insects in your garden, other than caterpillars. It is safe for humans, pets, everything else, except it is DEADLY to the tomato hornworm (and any other caterpillar that decides it wants to eat your vegetables).
How to Apply Bacillus Thuringiensis(Bt)
The key to using Bt is to use a 1 - gallon pump sprayer. I have used small hand held sprayers like the ones used to spray disinfectant on a counter top, and it takes forever to apply the Bt. This is because you need to coat both the top and bottom of the leaves and you should apply it until the solution runs off. There is just not enough volume coming out of those hand held sprayers and besides, my fingers get cramped from pulling back on that trigger every second. To make this task easy and FAST, use a 1 -gallon pump sprayer like this.
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With the brand of Bt that I use, I mix up 4 teaspoons with one gallon of water. I spray all of my tomato plants leaves, top and bottom until it runs off. I also spray my pepper plants, and my bok choi and my spinach. You get the idea. I use it on everything that caterpillars may want to make a lunch out of. I repeat the process every ten days and after it rains.
Conclusion
THIS PRODUCT WORKS PERFECTLY. No hornworm caterpillars in our gardens eating our tomato plants. So easy. And it’s 100% organic and safe for everything else in in the garden.
Sometimes, there really is a perfect solution to a problem. I wish all our garden challenges could be solved so easily. If you haven’t used it, give it a try. Put down that blue light and keep those nights free to spend with the ones you love.
