Just when I said I have never gotten a tomato hornworm....
I was taking this photo because I wanted to post about my Maskotka tomatoes. In taking the shot, I only then noticed that a leaf at the bottom of the photo had holes in it. Holes are not good. I approached the leaf and shrieked by the other side moved...and while I knew what it was because y'all had posted about it and I had read the posts, grossed out, I have often though to myself, "Whew...thank God we don't have those here."
On closer examination, there's quite a bit of damage on about 10-15 leaves and I see the poop they're known for.
I found five. F I V E ! !
And I can't be certain they are all gone.
I thought these wasps were supposed to lay one egg. Then five separate moths laid worms on one plant? Have they no sense of territory?
So now, instead of a "look how gorgeous my Maskotka is" post, this is a "see my holey growing tomato plant with worms" post.
Now I have to go check all the other tomato plants.
Comments (15)
Sugi_C (Las Vegas, NV)
8 years agoRelated Discussions
Odds of Getting Pests When I Never Got Them Before?
Comments (5)I also live in an urban area in MA, and I've also noticed that I just don't see the pest problems that I used to see where I grew up (about an hour west/south of the city). I haven't even seen any tomato hornworms (thank goodness!), and I've never seen a Squash Vine Borer. Slugs are often a problem (beer traps are my best friend), and like you, I get aphids occasionally. My neighbor has Japanese beetle traps, so I assume he's had problems in the past, but I haven't seen any beetles myself. I did have some powdery mildew problems on my curcurbits last year, as did my next door neighbor (I assume it spread), and I handled it with a diluted milk spray. I actually have seen a groundhog in the city, but he was just sitting on my front walk and alarming the cat, and hadn't made an appearance in the garden. The squirrels, skunks, and raccoons don't seem to bother the garden. I expect that I would have bird problems if I ever got any berries established, but that's still my plan. Mostly, I'd say that you should plant what you want, and deal with the problems if and when they arise....See MoreYikes! What have I gotten myself into? :)
Comments (3)Here are a few simple suggestions I hope help: Don't buy any more violets no matter how tempted. If you do, you will be truly overwhelmed. Winter is not a good time to ship, anyhow. This will give you time to learn about them and to make your mistakes. As Irina said, there's a learning curve and we all lose violets; even those who have had them for years. Unless you've already repotted, leave them in the pots they came in for a while (I usually go six weeks). They can then adjust to your environment. Don't over-pot or your AVs will spend time growing roots instead of leaves and blooms. A rule of thumb is the pot should be 1/3 the leaf span. So a leaf-span of 3" should be in a 1" pot; a 6" span in a 2" pot. Others are more up on the largest pot in which you should put a mini or semi. When you do repot, you can cut regular AV soil with perlite (coarse is best; I get mine online or at the local co-op). 3:1 is the ratio with perlite being the bigger number. If you received blooming or ready-to-bloom plants you were lucky. Most aren't shipped that way and it could take the others a month or two before you see the first bloom. And most important of all: If you need reading glasses, WEAR THEM when you repot. :-D Happy Growing! Linda...See MoreI have never said this before, but...
Comments (3)Leslie, you need a flat bottom boat, I guess it would be sorta like running a trot-line. I am Sorry for all your mud, but we all may be want some of it before long. My wife told me that some area in northwest Ar. received almost 7" yesterday, we got a nice shower south of Ft. Smith. Larry...See MoreWhat did this damage?
Comments (17)"My understanding is that the larval stage is only 3 weeks, after which they pupate and then re-emerge and breed. There is enough time for 2 or 3 generations during a typical growing season in my part of the country." That may be so that the average length is 3 weeks so you have a short season and thus get them in distinct broods...meaning you can apply Bt at key times. If the little caterpillars and the big one of the same species of armyworm were present at the same time like you found, it's hard to call them different generations=broods if they were here. Here we get both the Fall and Southern Armyworms, two different ones. These bugs reproduce in so many places, on so many host plants, basically year-round, including just in the lawn here, and are so highly mobile unlike other caterpillars, that there are no distinct broods at all here like you probably have. Be sure to keep the grass nearby really low near the tomatoes since they probably come from the tall grass in the yard here and I don't think are usually laid directly on the plants. I can't grow peas well because of them. When growing peas, they feed at night and sleep in the day under leaves or pieces of mulch inches from the base of the affected plant of their choice, and crawl out when the light is weak or at night, and crawl up the plant and destroy. It was so frustrating and I lost my entire peas crop. The next time it happened, I took the war to them and observed which plants were freshly being eaten and then lifted likely mulch chips and leaves near the base of the plant in broad daylight. I got pretty good at discovering them that way like hunting for Easter eggs or something, but it was a PITA to deal with. With tomatoes, I don't know if they would crawl up and down the vine to the ground to do the same thing, and because they usually aren't as much a plague as much as a nuisance I hadn't thought about hunting them down by day but will check the base of the plant that was hit by a few now. That would be a good thing to figure out since by day there are fewer of the mosquito problems you are allergic to (you sound like you live in FL :-( ), or other biting noseeums here too. Do they have a preferred place to hide on the plant (besides inside the tomato fruits sometimes instead of returning to the plant from the ground? good question, no answer or not even a guess. Because if you can figure that out you can get them when they sleep instead of letting them have free reign of the place which is really frustrating. Cheers PC PS, if they did crawl up and down the vine and yours aren't sprawled, I'm thinking it might be worth putting some of that sticky stuff I use in DIY leaf miner fly traps, it's called "Tree Tanglefoot", and that might even work around the truss/pedicel of tomatoes on the vine in some situations. Just a thought, since I never heard of anyone doing it but it sounds like it might work....See MoreSugi_C (Las Vegas, NV)
8 years agoShort of flipping that plant upside down, I really thought I got them all.
Clearly, I did not. I missed one. At least one, I guess.
I had to go out of town for a wedding for a few days so I had moved this plant into a somewhat shadier but very bright spot, out of full sun, since this plant even in this size of a pot (5 gallons or so...) seems to droop and look sad when it's hot and sunny. Since it was to be in the 90s while I was gone, I watered, moved it and was happy to find it alive and looking well upon my return.
However, first, I noticed a branch missing all of its leaves. A few branches...all the leaves snipped off like I did it with scissors. GONE.
Then, I noticed this on the soil. BLECH! It was all in one area.... Since I had seen the baby, tiny hornworms on this, I googled tomato hornworm poop, and alas....that's what it was.
But I still couldn't find anything on the plant.
And since I have begun tying this plant up instead of letting it fall/hang over the pot, I've paid close attention to it every other day or so.
But in the middle of the plant, I found this on one of the bigger tomatoes -- which I obviously snipped off (it was otherwise clean but when I snipped it, it dropped into the soil and I wasn't about to touch it to clean it up):
I continued tying branches up and examining the bottom of leaves but really couldn't find anything. But this plant, despite its ultimate small size, is a beast and is covered in blooms and really has quite a few leaves, all tangled up with one another.
Upon peering into the leaves in the middle of the plant on the inside of the pot, I noticed some strange "bugs" at the area where the leaf meets the branch. A LOT OF THEM.
So I took my scissors and traced to the end of the leaf and snipped that off, too. Whatever it was, it has to come off, right?
What I didn't know then that I quickly found out was that they were the "feet" of the hornworm. I was slowly pulling out the leaf from the jungle of leaves and when it came out, I thought it was extraordinarily heavy....and I looked at the leaf and, well, basically screamed for my life and threw that leaef on the ground.
Talk about amazing camouflage skills! In the middle of the pot where it's considerably darker, I truly did not see the bug. And the "feet" were browning so I thought maybe aphids....I had no clue at all despite looking for hornworms and the last ones I picked off were about 1.5 centimeters long.
This was enormous!!!
The first time I planted tomato plants was around 1997.
And I have never encountered tomato hornworms or anything this grotesque. At best, I've had mildew problems, rust or blackspot problems other years, but what dumb luck to have never encountered something. Of course, reading this forum, I've seen plenty of others who did have it and was equally ewww-ing while reading....until this year.
This one didn't have the eggs on it, but in all honesty, even as I peered down to see if it did, I was hoping/praying it didn't because i am not certain what mindset i have to be in to not put this in the trash!!
Times like this, I admit, I have no business gardening, LOL. I really don't think there's anyone else who hates bugs as much as I do. While I've learned to leave most spiders be (though I do draw the line at jumping spiders; arachnids should not display rabbit-like behavior), though I curse them out daily because of the webs, and I let bees do their thing while I run inside and ants don't really gross me out....everything else is just so gross.
maxjohnson
8 years agolast modified: 8 years ago
nanelle_gw (usda 9/Sunset 14)
8 years agolast modified: 8 years agoSugi_C (Las Vegas, NV)
8 years agonanelle_gw (usda 9/Sunset 14)
8 years ago
tripleione
8 years ago
I've been noticing them a lot more compared to when I first started gardening, but I can also grow and manage more tomato plants as well. These guys might be pests to us, but in the grand scheme of things, I think they might have a bigger role to play in the environment than we know.
That said, I pick them off of my plants (I have found more than half a dozen of them on my 12 tomato plants this year) and throw them into the woods behind my house. I also throw my diseased stems and foliage around them when I prune so they at least have something to eat. Can't say I've ever noticed any of them making their way back to my tomatoes. I can't say for sure that they lived, either, but I'd like to believe they had enough nutrition to move to its next life stage, whatever that may be.
I have a lot of help managing them as well, as you can see above.Sugi_C (Las Vegas, NV)
8 years agonanelle_gw (usda 9/Sunset 14)
8 years agolast modified: 8 years agoSugi_C (Las Vegas, NV)
8 years agoSugi_C (Las Vegas, NV)
8 years agotripleione
8 years agolast modified: 8 years agoSugi_C (Las Vegas, NV)
8 years ago
hoosier40 6a Southern IN