My garden is doing well, started all my plants March 5th. My tomato plants are like 4 to 5 feat high with lots of fruit and flowers, Today my wife spots a caterpillar which turns into several dozen, chicken food now. They ate to top leaves and some fruits of my tomato's, not too much damage but I have to stop this before it gets worse.
[img]https://i255.photobucket.com/albums/hh144/Runfox/Garden%20and%20Chickens/farmerdimtomatoes.jpg[/img]
So what can I do besides just keep looking and pulling off the caterpillars ? don't want chemicals, growing my tomatoes organic. I should have taken a picture of them, they were all green. We saw butterflies the other day , saying oh they are beautiful, but I guess this is their larvae right?
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kimbledawn
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Beautiful organic plants!!!!! 
I am battling the same thing, caterpillars, aphids, and many other pests. I have been spraying pepper spray and soap solution so far. I have BT waiting but I want to use it or neem as my last resorts.
I went out the other night just fooling around( I didn't really think I would find much) and in about ten minutes I picked over forty
slugs out of my garden. 
Don't let them get out of hand or it gets overwhelming fighting the pests. I am trying to be proactive and preventative because its much easier to squish an egg cluster or pick a leaf with eggs on them than to find those litlle suckers when they hatch.
I am battling the same thing, caterpillars, aphids, and many other pests. I have been spraying pepper spray and soap solution so far. I have BT waiting but I want to use it or neem as my last resorts.I went out the other night just fooling around( I didn't really think I would find much) and in about ten minutes I picked over forty
slugs out of my garden. Don't let them get out of hand or it gets overwhelming fighting the pests. I am trying to be proactive and preventative because its much easier to squish an egg cluster or pick a leaf with eggs on them than to find those litlle suckers when they hatch.
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engineeredgarden
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Bacillus thuringiensis - completely safe microbial insecticide that was specifically manufactured to address leaf-eating caterpillars. It's all I use on my tomato plants. When a caterpillar has ingested some of the leaves that have been sprayed, it causes paralysis to the stomach of the victim (basically a really bad tummy ache). After that point, it simply starves itself to death. Try it, it's commonly referredto as "BT"
EG
EG
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engineeredgarden
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Once again my wife is wonderful she has been patrolling our garden and keeps pulling off catapillars. we have picked most of them all off. Today she saw one with white dots alal over it and asked me about it, sure enough it had wasp larvae all over it, yaaa bout time those waps got to work helping me out, those slackers. We left that catapillar on the plant, so the larvae will hatch and help us out some more. I have some BT coming and will spray that too, so I think our tomatos will be safe for now.
Until the green tomaotes turn red, then who knows what critters will get a liking to them. I have heard squirls like ripe tomatos and birds ?? I may have to keep one of our Jack Russel terriers out in my garden area overnight to keep them safe.
Until the green tomaotes turn red, then who knows what critters will get a liking to them. I have heard squirls like ripe tomatos and birds ?? I may have to keep one of our Jack Russel terriers out in my garden area overnight to keep them safe.
Careful with the B. thuringensis (sorry, it's too late at night after too many late nights at work...). It may take out the parasitizing wasps as well as the hornworms. 
And besides, you wouldn't want to starve those poor little baby wasps....
We found probably the largest tomato (not tobacco, I'm pretty sure...or is it?) hornworm on our Roma tomato plant in about October 2008. A red-letter day, to be sure. It was a generous 3 inches from tip to tip. Bleargh. I certainly hope they don't get any larger than that!
Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9
And besides, you wouldn't want to starve those poor little baby wasps....We found probably the largest tomato (not tobacco, I'm pretty sure...or is it?) hornworm on our Roma tomato plant in about October 2008. A red-letter day, to be sure. It was a generous 3 inches from tip to tip. Bleargh.
I certainly hope they don't get any larger than that!Cynthia H.
Sunset Zone 17, USDA Zone 9
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applestar
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That's true. BtK will indiscriminately affect all lepidoptera (butterfly and moth) caterpillars. One reason I don't use it except under extreme provocation and with limited application, since my whole back yard is a butterfly garden with many larval food plants.
It sounds like you and your wife are harvesting nutrient-dense chicken food to me.
Re: squirrels and birds -- Maybe it's different in extremely hot climates (though we get our share of over 100º weather sometimes), but neither of them bother my tomatoes. They DO make frequent use of the birdbath and any other water feature in the garden. Since I started my rice paddies, the robins are regular bathers in there. Probably feeding the goldfish in the water and leaving some fertilizer.
I plan to expand and re-start my tiny pond too, after the spring planting is done. 
It sounds like you and your wife are harvesting nutrient-dense chicken food to me.
Re: squirrels and birds -- Maybe it's different in extremely hot climates (though we get our share of over 100º weather sometimes), but neither of them bother my tomatoes. They DO make frequent use of the birdbath and any other water feature in the garden. Since I started my rice paddies, the robins are regular bathers in there. Probably feeding the goldfish in the water and leaving some fertilizer.
I plan to expand and re-start my tiny pond too, after the spring planting is done. -
gixxerific
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runfox, do you know about IPM?
It's a more structured way to make these decisions that is actually a great way to learn all the in's and out's of a a pest.
No pesticide is immune from pest resistance, so IMHO you made a really good choice not to hit them with Bt. Just ask Monsanto and their addicts. They love their Bt Frankencorn so much that they "forget" to plant the patch of natural corn that is supposed to keep the pests vulnerable by giving them sanctuary.
The result?
Larvae that can resist Bt.
duh! asking farmers to keep non GMO corn is like telling an addict to only smoke 9/10ths of his crack.
It's a more structured way to make these decisions that is actually a great way to learn all the in's and out's of a a pest.
No pesticide is immune from pest resistance, so IMHO you made a really good choice not to hit them with Bt. Just ask Monsanto and their addicts. They love their Bt Frankencorn so much that they "forget" to plant the patch of natural corn that is supposed to keep the pests vulnerable by giving them sanctuary.
The result?
Larvae that can resist Bt.
duh! asking farmers to keep non GMO corn is like telling an addict to only smoke 9/10ths of his crack.
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rainbowgardener
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Just what I was thinking! I have never seen a tomato hornworm. Maybe that's just luck, maybe they aren't as common in my area, I don't know. But maybe it has to do with all the birds, because we have lots of birdhouses and bird feeders. Many of the birds that eat the seeds at the birdfeeders also eat insects part of the time.soil wrote:birds, you need more birds.
I hope I stay lucky, they look nasty.
Incidentally they do say that companion planting borage with your tomatoes helps to repel tomato hornworms. I did plant borage with them for the first time this year (because borage is also supposed to be very attractive to honeybees). Since I never had the hornworms, I won't know if borage actually repels them... (See the tiger trap is working!
)The tiger trap was me... I some how managed to get my post in soil's instead of just quoting soil, sorry!
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gixxerific
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applestar
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Don't forget most every kind of wasps, not just the parasitic ones but paper wasps, yellow jackets, etc. also feed caterpillars to their young. I see them inspecting just about every veg in the garden -- def'ly toms, corn and cole crops crawling down between leaves and crevices I can't even see let alone reach.
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gixxerific
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I keep trying to tell people this myself, that wasp are good. But as you can imagine 99%+ don't want to hear it.applestar wrote:Don't forget most every kind of wasps, not just the parasitic ones but paper wasps, yellow jackets, etc. also feed caterpillars to their young. I see them inspecting just about every veg in the garden -- def'ly toms, corn and cole crops crawling down between leaves and crevices I can't even see let alone reach.