Awe, don't do it. I know it looks like you are doing some damage and that can be depressing, but if someone can dedicate just one tomato bush and move you there so that you can both hang out on it together you'll soon be able to pupate and then turn into beautiful moths, tiger moth and hummingbird moth respectively and fly around looking beautiful and adding a bit of magic to the garden.

Believe me -- you'll be much more appreciated in that form! :-)

Here is a link that might be useful: Video of hummingbird moth ...

If only I were a de Havilland Tiger Moth...

Ah, the second is a tomato hornworm, it looks like. That thing can strip a plant in a night when it's big enough. I like nature, but I want to eat my tomatoes and have no way to separate out a host plant. So my apologies to roselee, but there is no mercy for tomato eaters of the buggy kind here.

Safest thing to use is probably handpicking...and if there are too many, use BT spray according to the directions (I bought mine as concentrate and mix according to directions and put in a spray bottle, but I don't have but four tomato plants so not a hard thing for me to hand spray). BT is a bacteria that kills them when they bite and chew a leaf so they will not die right away...thus the reason why some handpicking will serve you well until the bt has time to knock the rest of the ones you can't see off.

So far this season I have seen very few caterpillars and have been able to control with just smashing egg cases on the backs of leaves and picking the caterpillars off by hand. But the BT is considered organic by some folks, and is the least toxic method of offing them if you don't want to rely on squishing or feeding to the blue jays.

Good luck.

I plant some tomatoes in the empty lot across the alley every year just for the hornworms! I grow the ones I want to eat at the community garden, if I find any of these guys I take them home to the plants in the alley. I absolutely love the hummingbird moths, they are so cool zipping in and out of the blooms on the brugs(angel trumpets).
Tally HO!

No apologies needed, Srburk :-) I'm not hard nosed about it. I just thought it would be fun to respond from the caterpillar's point of view. Everything wants to live.

Plus many people don't know what the tomato hornworm becomes. When they do realize they turn into hummingbird moths some of them opt to put them on what is called a 'catch plant' like Tally does.

But if that doesn't work for you I agree that BT takes care of the 'problem' in the best way with the least amount of damage to the environment since it is a bacteria that is specific to caterpillars.

Happy gardening!

That video was cool...but... I only have about 6 tomatoe plants and only about 3 of them are producing, so I can't afford to share... with anything! I didn't kill them... yet... I just picked them along with their leaves and put them in the compost pile.

do you have any moon flower,,, Datura?
That's where my hornworms go. Snap a twig off the maters and carry it to the datura.

When the neighbors walk by and admire the flowers I can show them what a magical moth a horn worm becomes. One neighbor has promised he'll brin his hornworms to my datura patch...haven't heard that he actually did it. Oh well...
c

I'm with you on not sharing. I nearly lost ALL my herbs due to these and other caterpillars. One set were really beautiful - green with black and red spots/stripes. But I wanted my plants more. I used the BT powder I got from an organic dealer and it worked well.

Alas, it was something different that infected my tomatoes, and none survived.

My neighbor has a plum tree that was getting attacked by birds. She decided to 'share' so was eating them sour just so she could get them before the birds. Then I told her it was the grackles eating them....and she had our ripe peaches (we put a net over the peach tree) and decided this race to get them before the grackles was maybe not such a good idea....

Datura huh? Didn't know they ate that. I'll put in more datura. My passionvines spend most of the year without a single leaf, the fennel is just a bulb with no top growth...but the yard is FULL of butterflies!
Tally HO!

I know where you are coming from Tally! I plant not only for me, but for all the cats out there that are looking to become beautiful butterflies. Often when one plant is stripped down, I just put gloves on and move the cats to another host plant. So feel free to bring your unwanted cats to my house. I love watching them become butterflies and moths.

But there are exceptions to my "rule" about not killing cats! LOL! I do kill a few cats that I don't want in my yard, including canna leafrollers, and stinging caterpillars including the asp! Nasty little cats!

So... if I pick them off and move them way far away from the plant they are on and abandon them in the yard, is that just an inhumane way of killing them? Or will they walk back to the tomatoe or pepper plant and continue eating?

I had no idea that tomato hornworms became those moths! I think I saw one in the front yard today, but never saw any on my few tomato plants, I do grow fennel for the swallowtail, guess need to get better educated about what these things turn into.

When I move them, I move them to another host plant. I don't just throw them out there. And it doesn't take them all that long for the caterpillar to become the chrysalis, generally about a month.

Butterfly Info

Butterfly Info

Butterfly Info

I was wrong. Actually the caterpillar stage lasts about 10 days, then they go into the chrysalis stage for 8-12 days.

Hubby chopped down my huge dill plant because he thought it was a weed and it was filled with caterpillars. The pretty kind, lol. I left them on it and put it in the shade and can only hope it lasts long enough for them to eat on until they change.