Google tomato horn worm to see if that is your critter. Pesticides really aren't necessary for controlling them. Yes, they can blend in, but they are pretty large and the damage makes it pretty obvious you have one or more hanging out so just pick them off and toss to the birds :)

if they've got white rice looking things on them, let 'em be
thats the larve of a parasitic wasp that eats them, they'll be dead before they can damage much more.

also, if you got the willpower, pick 'em, cut 'em and stick 'em on your platform birdfeeder, you'll have bird friends for LIFE :)

One year when I had a lot of tomato plants in the garden I looked-out the window and spotted a roadrunner diving in and out of the plants. I kept watching him to see what he was up to and then spotted him step back from one of the plants with a huge horn-worm in his beak. Talk about natural pest control!

Greg
Nevada

I'm in Ohio. If it's the tomato hornworm, I picked one off of my tomato plant a few weeks back and haven't found any/damage since. It helped that I was picking suckers off the tomatoes, otherwise I would have never found him.

Deep fry them..

Below is a tomato hornworn. The white rice looking things are coccons of the parastic wasp. If these are present, leave it be. The wasp lays its eggs in the body of the hornworm. The wasp larvae feed internally, and emerge from the body to spin their cocoons.

{{gwi:83121}}
Within a few days it will look like this;
{{gwi:83122}}

Thanks for the advice on the hornworms. Before I picked them off and threw them over the railing on the sundeck to the forest below, I saw that they had those disgusting little white-rice things on them. Now I know to let them be. I imagine those sweet little parasitic wasps will get 'em while the hornworms are on the forest floor.

What's amazing is, if it is real still and quiet,
you can actually hear them munching, if you listen
very carefully.

This year we had no problems with the worms in the tomatoes as we had a Brown Thrasher nest near by on one side and a Catbird nest on the other and like Sandhill Farms said, they kept the tomato vines clear of worms.

Shot

cool photo's! And great info!

We had the big green worm on our tomato plant. My wife killed it. I felt bad. Then Last night, there was another one. I have it in a bucket with all the tomato leaves it wants and onion stems to climb around on. It is a fascinating creature. Other than eating a few leaves and a little tomato, it is not harming anyone. I am happy to have this one, after my wife viciously killed the last one. No reason to kill something that is just trying to live. I'm kinda curious to see what kind of moth it becomes :)

I feel bad killing them because the moth is quite magnificent. I gave the last one to the chickens and they enjoyed it …..

Linda

yeah they will destroy your tomato plants. I did leave a few with the parasites on their backs last year. I said good riddance. gave few to the feather girls down the lane. one can find them with the special flashlight I bought.

I can't remember type but the hornw show up flourscent like with the purple light.

those cute moths will eat your plants and lay countless eggs. I don't feel the least bad

thanks all