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Tomato Horn Worms :-(
- Thread starter Big Mike
- Start date
Big Mike said:Tomato horn worms get worse every year. Hard to spot too (you have to look for indirect evidence if you know what I mean).
And...They can wipe a plant out in no time at all if you don't catch them.
Birds in my yard must be too lazy.
Big Mike
And, like rats & rabbits, there's never just one!
Get a uv flashlight and check the plants at night. Hornworms glow under the uv making them much easier to find and dispose of.
I had 2 last year and only 1 this year, but this one took out a smaller plant's whole canopy before I caught it.
Robins love to eat their larvae in early spring, so me and them are best friends. I'm out there digging as soon as the ground is soft enough. The digging wakes up the larvae so they start moving around, and when I'm done the soil is nice and soft for the birds to reach in with their beaks. Sometimes they will sit and wait for me to stop digging so they can continue hunting. I'll find a grub and toss it over to them, they see it wiggling and swoop over to tear it apart.
Robins love to eat their larvae in early spring, so me and them are best friends. I'm out there digging as soon as the ground is soft enough. The digging wakes up the larvae so they start moving around, and when I'm done the soil is nice and soft for the birds to reach in with their beaks. Sometimes they will sit and wait for me to stop digging so they can continue hunting. I'll find a grub and toss it over to them, they see it wiggling and swoop over to tear it apart.
Thuracill is your friend!!!!!
Haven't confronted any yet, this year...if I see one though, you'd best believe I'll whoop dat azz
hammerhead pat said:
Just so you know, doing a search on "Thuracill" will bring battery ads....flashlight battery ads....Try Thuracide...
I have a couple container pubes that are suffering the hornworms. They burrow into the ground during the day, some not as well as others. Unfortunately my hornworm was of the brown variety:
Tough, eh? Yeah, and me with some poor-ass vision. But he's in there.
...uh, or was in there.
I suppose I could make it a little easier to spot, I know it took me a while....
I hope the other one is a bit....brighter....
I encountered my 2nd of the year today, munching down on my overwintered serrano. I also discovered that they will play dead when threatened, AND are like little freaking terminators. I tossed it alive into my compost bin and jabbed it hard right in the middle with a blunt stick and pushed it down into the compost. Green goo splattered on me so I went inside to clean up. Came out 20 minutes later and the thing was crawling up the side of the the stick I used to stab it, with a gaping wound in its side.
Then it occurred to me... last time I killed one I stomped on it in the soft dirt, saw it splatter and left it for dead. The next day there was no trace of it's body. I assumed a bird or something ate it, but now I'm not so sure.
Then it occurred to me... last time I killed one I stomped on it in the soft dirt, saw it splatter and left it for dead. The next day there was no trace of it's body. I assumed a bird or something ate it, but now I'm not so sure.