Big & Green

[bigredbirdfan]

What is big (as big around as your ring finger) and long (as long as your ring finger) and green and eating up all of my tomato plants?

[fly2fish]

What is big (as big around as your ring finger) and long (as long as your ring finger) and green and eating up all of my tomato plants?

Tomatoe hornworms, they can strip the leaves and vines very fast, you usually have more than you think. One year I found about a dozen on my plants so I dusted with Sevin and within about 15 minutes I saw at least 2 dozen more start to wiggle as they were dying. They are easy to get rid of but it will take regular applications once they have started.

HC

[jdmidwest]

Tomato worms. If your plants are thick and leafy it will be hard to spot them. Look for black pellets under the vines, worm poop. They blend in with the plant well. Careful with the Sevin if tomatoes are bearing, read instructions on how long before you can eat the tomatoes after the dusting. I usually just pluck them off and stomp them while tomatoes are ripening, nailed six small ones today. I have not had much of a problem with them this year.

[Terry Beeson]

What is big (as big around as your ring finger) and long (as long as your ring finger) and green and eating up all of my tomato plants?

Your ring finger with the ring too tight and morphed into a tomato plant eating appendage after being abducted by aliens and probed, prodded, and injected with all kinds of weird experimental alien drugs, chemicals, and mind and tissue altering devices?

Or tomato hornworms...

A periodic dose of Sevin from the time the plants are a couple of weeks old until they begin to bear ripened fruit is good preventative medicine for them. Too late for that, so a light dose of Sevin will help. As suggested, careful now since sevin is not a good dietary supplement for humans...

[Guest kevinkirk]

Good grief, man. Put them in a can and take them fishing with you. They are EXCELLENT catfish bait. I would imagine a big ole brown would gobble one down too.