Yes the green hard to see caterpillars i think are the most common and have damaged my tomato plants a little bit before i caught them. You have to look at every inch of your plant thorougly because they can hide anywere and not be seen. I found a little green worm under my pepper plants leaf one time (not sure what it was) but havent seen them since. I just recently started seeing my tomato plants stems turn hollow so i looked it up and there is a different type of caterpillar that will make entry into the stem of your tomato plant and will eat it from the inside. I had to throw my plant away because it was completely hollow and dead. I also had a watermelon plant which did really good until it started getting infested with melon aphids on the backside of the leaves. I heard that lady bugs are really beneficial for your garden and they say an adult lady bug will eat up to 5000 aphids in its lifetime. I will try this method and will post how it works but i seen someone post about wasps helping with problems in their garden and would like to know more about how the wasps work.

can I eat a bitten into tomato? Sure if you want to. Just cut out a wide area around the damage. The "big green horned things" are called tomato horn worms (although they are actually tobacco horn worms) and they are easily controlled with hand picking or application of Bt (Dipel, Thiricide) a common caterpillar insecticide. The mix recommended above, like so many of the home-made concoctions) is not needed and is potentially very harmful to the plants themselves. The standard recipe for such concoction is 1 gallon of water with 1 T of liquid dish soap and it is used by some for controlling aphids and other soft bodied insects, not caterpillars. Dave

I have no ideas, but you might try posting this on the Fruit & Orchards Forum. Here is a link that might be useful: Fruit & Orchards Forum

I think this little beastie is (or was?) a tomato fruitworm, aka Helicoverpa zea. An article on them at the link below, and if you google that bot name you'll see photos like this that I think will confirm. (pics of moth and larvae) http://bugguide.net/node/view/743928 With all the wilts and rusts and such, you wonder why you bother. Then you buy something and it tastes like nothing, or they go to $8 a kilo, and you remember why you decided to grow your own. Here is a link that might be useful: info