Hornworm hellions....

Hot Head

Hot Head

I have found 11 or 12 of these guys within my 58 plant garden since yesterday.....
I am trying to keep it as organic as possible, so what would you guys recommend to keep these plant eaters at bay?
I am spraying oil, water, soap on the plants now and that has NO effect on them.
 
:confused: :onfire:  
 
 
hornworm.jpg
 
Tweezers and the bottom of my shoe is all I've found effective so far. I fell your pain, I only have about 12 plants  but found about 6 on one alone. I also have leaf rollers on my tomatoes..... go figure.
 
the funny part is that the other day I found a bunch of leaves on my basil plant stuck together with some black dots inside the leaves....kind of rolled up into a cigar....turns out it is these little bastards.
SO if you guys see some rolled up leaves with black dots (turds) inside them, better get to looking....
 
thats what the leaf rollers do... they eat their fill then curl up in the leaf to turn into its moth self. I think it's called somethng else but cant think of it right now. Ive only seen hornworms on the branches under leaves. I know they are there when I walk out and see a nakid branch.... then the search begins. And yes there is lots of black poop pellets around.
 
Seven or nukem' from space.
 
Its the only way to be sure.
 
You have to look underneath the leaves to find the pin head sized opaque egg.
 
You'll see it.
 
I used Seven spray.
 
Killed 'em all.
 
But moth's like it.
 
They'll be back.
 
Vigilance!
 
saw two of those buggers on my tomatoes today, covered in wasp eggs...
 
I usually pick them off and feed them to my fish
 
I plant fennel near my plots as a sacrificial plant to the hornworms. Then I kill them with my bare hands when I catch them eating the fennel. They don't seem to bug the peppers much. That's probably because there are tons of wolf, jumping, and other spiders that like my pepper plots an plants (my pods have spiders of different species and webs in their crevices there are so many). I suggest jumping spiders man. I saw one a fraction of the size of a hornworm kill it and hold it in its mouth, lol. There are also some natural wasps here that lay white eggs all over the hornworms and paralyze them. The larva eats their insides alive after they hatch.
 
There are "natural" things that aren't good. Some studies have shown BT to be not only toxic to insects but mammals as well. It affects your red blood cells. You can likely thank Monsanto for that. I see growers talking about it all the time, but I don't use it.
 
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