We found them again this year . We lost a plant or two last year to them and were waiting for them to show up.. We had just said.. Hey, no sign of our green friends yet.. a little early as the next morning the tip top of a green pepper was cleaned off and just a few tomato leaves. We found about 10 and after a powder dusting, we found more that had dropped. We throw them over our fence to an empty dirt lot.. wonder if they can make it back to our greenery?? anyone know? My son just told me he saw about 8 on the patio in the afternoon.. so we need to recheck for eggs and more of the buggers. What a pain. I hate that they can do so much damage so fast and in a small garden like ours, we would have little left. Ironically, the green pepper we got about 10 small peppers off of this year was the plant they ate last year and the first one we found them on this year.

pika Where are you geographically? A couple of those pictures look like a gall growth of some kind. And they can happen on tomatoes, though that's very rare. Most of the internet sources mention its existence in the UK, on grafted tomatoes in greenhouses. See below. I have to agree with others that those don't look like tomato stems or leaves to me. Maybe it's an unusual variety? Here is a link that might be useful: Tomato -- Crown Gall

I had a lot of them last year....picked them off and put them in the bird feeder. The mockingbirds and jays loved them. I had the feeder in a ten gallon can of dirt. One of the worms must have fallen in it. I emptied out the dirt earlier this summer and there was the pupa of the Sphinx moth. Yucky....so I had to give it a merciful death. So far, this year no tomato worms. Check in the early morning or around dusk to see the horrible green things near the top of the plants.

I dig a trench about 3 inches deep if that will accommodate the root ball or just enlarge the end where you are putting the root ball and lay the rest of the stem in the trench and cover with soil. Of course you can dig the trench deeper if you'd like but at least 3in deep. The top of the plant should not be covered, of course, and I prop up the top with a small nursery pot until it starts growing, usually a week or so. I got a great deal on a bull's heart which was pot bound in a tiny pot and so leggy and tall the stem could not support it, I planted it as I described and it is now healthy and has several beautiful tomatoes on it, not yet ripe. You do have to be careful where you dig after you plant a tomato this way and I water this tomato differently then my others, making sure I water over the whole stem area. I always mark the area with something to remind me where the stem is to I don't forget and dig a hole and ruin the tomato. Yeah, it is a good technique for the really tall and spindly tomatoes.