Help! Caterpillars destroying my tomatoes

[eer_77]

My tomatoes are finally growing and ripening, but they've suddenly become infested with caterpillars that are boring into the fruits. They are little black caterpillars (~1-1.5 inches) with a small green and red stripe running lengthwise down each side. I don't know what to do and I'm afraid my entire crop will be ruined as there are more and more caterpillars each day. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[opabinia51]

A relatively quick, short ter, organic answer is Bt or Dipel that contains the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis for next year, an ounce of prevention is worth about ten bushels of tomatoes.

Take a look at this website and it will give you all the answers you need. It also contains information on Dipel.

https://www.greenharvest.com.au/pestcontrol2/caterpillar_info.html

[The Helpful Gardener]

BT is a good safe answer. Try it soon and hand pick as many as you can in the meantime...

Scott

[eer_77]

Thanks for the advice. Is Dipel a product that many organic gardeners use?

[opabinia51]

Yes, and commercial organic gardeners also use it.

[Grey]

So far DH & I are handpicking the buggers off. We're lucky we only seem to have one or two a day. They even started in on the basil, and I don't often see things eat basil!

As a side tho, which catepillars should we not be killing? Ours are black and a yellow/white stripe, so I haven't been killing them so much as moving them elsewhere.

[opabinia51]

Don't know about cateripillars that you shouldn't be killing. They are all voracious eaters. (I also wouldn't try to kill ALL of them because well, there is that whole insect population thing )

But, for next year; you guys may wish to plant some guilds where you include flowers with your food plants that attract beneficial insects such as predatory wasps to eat the caterpillars. And not to mention plants that will repel the butterflies and moths that lay the eggs that give rise to the caterpillars.

[The Helpful Gardener]

Yellow and black stripes could be so many; describes monarch and swallowtails as well as several bad guys (although I'd be awful suprised to find those two on your veggies) Howzabout a pic?

Scott

[Grey]

Monarchs were the ones I was concerned about, as I seem to recall they have black stripes. And I like butterflies - so I don't want to kill them off, just redirect them somewhere that I don't mind gets really lacy looking leaves. lol.

I'd supply a photo, but I somehow managed to leave my camera at my folk's house in FL. My cell takes photos but haven't managed to figure out how to get them to the computer yet - reading the manual might help but who does that?

[The Helpful Gardener]

A fellow technophobe mod! Excellent!

Monarchs have tight yellow, white and black stripes and are three or so inches long. Plus they only eat Asclepias, or swamp milkweed as a larval food source, so I really don't think it's them. Google image for Monarch catepillar; I got good images right off...

Scott

[miaviva]

Help! I've been plagued by hornworms for the last three summers. Is there anything one can add to the soil in the fall or early spring to prevent the problem from recurring? Will an application of Dipel to the plants now help with next summer's crop? I don't know how to get ahead of the problem.

[The Helpful Gardener]

The BT is still the best answer there...

HG