When I flew into Vegas late last night after my six day trip to Alabama, I discovered that my return had not been the only one. It seems that the dreaded hornworms had taken advantage of my absence to launch another, far more devastating attack on our tomato plants. While they consumed the foliage of only one limb a few weeks ago (see post: "Attack of the Hornworm!"), this time they stripped three fully grown plants. Our Lemon Boy, Black Prince, and Better Boy have all been damaged beyond hope of recovery. The worms also ate quite a few leaves (and even some tomatoes) off of the large Heatwave and Sunmaster plants. The amount of destruction these worms can unleash upon a plant is really shocking. I wonder if there is any organic way to defend against the creatures?
Lemon Boy
Black Prince
the culprit
tomatoes for breakfast
thirteen ruined tomatoes
5 comments:
Oh Man! I bet you were so upset! I would be. I have heard that Bt can fend them off, but I don't know it effects on the environment. What devastation! You had some really tomatoes growing too:)
Dang, and it happens so fast.
Thanks for the comments Annie and Aunt Debbi/Kurts Mom. Yeah I was pretty ticked off. At least the worms held off until the plants had pretty much stopped producing due to the heat. And, I have several other plants starting to replace them with for the Fall.
I did a search on gardenweb for hornworms, as I found my first four today, and found my way to your site. Nice blog, btw, and happy growing. And of course DEATH TO HORNWORMS!
dipple dust will get rid of them :)
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