Leaf miners gone, new worm takes its place

[Francis Barnswallow]

The seek and squish with fly trap assistance seems to have taken care of the year long leaf miner problem.

Now after inspecting the tomato plants I noticed some leaves had big chunks chewed out of them. I flipped the leaf and noticed a 2 inch long green worm (it's color was the exact color of the tomato plant), I then found another worm near by.

The worms looked exactly like this worm:

[img]https://I.ehow.co.uk/images/a06/vu/81/big-green-worms-tomato-plants-800x800.jpg[/img]

I don't know if it was the dreaded horn worm b/c it didn't have a horn on the back of it. I think it might be a tomato fruitworm. Regardless they were both set on fire.

Any suggestions on how to control these new pests?

[rainbowgardener]

"The best fertilizer for the garden is the gardener's shadow" That means it helps to spend a lot of time and be observant. So your shadow is also the best insecticide. Assuming you have a few tomato plants, not fields of them, all you need to do is keep inspecting and hand picking them. The hornworms are hard to spot because so well camoflauged, but big and slow and easy to pick off.

In the meantime you might try leaving one and keeping an eye on it to see what happens. Every hornworm I found in my garden last year had already been parasitized by the braconid wasps, like the top picture in this thread:

https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=160067#160067

with the little white cocoons all over its back. If you find one like that you want to leave it alone so more of the little wasps can hatch out. I did not import the braconids, they were just naturally there in my garden, and I didn't even know until I saw their handiwork.

[Francis Barnswallow]

I do have a ton of wasps flying around the garden (especially around the dill plant). I'm constantly getting out of their way when I approach the garden. 2 days ago I ripped off 2 "bundles" of tiny white cocoon looking sacks near my garden. At the time I thought that they were from moths.....not wasps.

So are wasps good for the garden?

[rainbowgardener]

There's a zillion different kinds of wasps, so there's not a general answer to that question, but yes a number of different wasps are predatory on insects you don't want.

The braconid wasps I mentioned are very inconspicuous, probably only about 1/4" long, so you probably haven't noticed them flying around.

[Francis Barnswallow]

The wasps I've seen are the size of dogs.

What color are the braconid wasps?

[rainbowgardener]

https://bugguide.net/node/view/170

[Francis Barnswallow]

Thanks rainbowgardener.