My tomato plants are almost 6 foot tall and are just loaded w/ large beautiful tomatoes but just when they get ripe some kind of worm eats a hole in them. I haven't found a worm in the tomatoes but the smell is terrible and you can't use any part of the fruit. I don't use any pesticides. Any help in getting rid of these pest is greatly appreciated! Thanks again Deb

-- Debbie T in NC (rdtyner@mindspring.com), July 03, 2001

Answers

The only two bugs that I know that will eat tomatos are slugs[ and snails] and tomato horn worms. are the leafs getting eaten? then it is probably tomato horn worms, and they hid under the leafs and are hard to find[ they are large though]. if the leafs are not eaten then it is probably snails or slugs.

-- kathy h (ckhart55@earthlink.net), July 03, 2001.

Hi Debbie, There are two organic ways to get rid of tomato hornworms that I know of: 1. Pick them off with your fingers and squash them. 2. Dust the plants with DE (diatomaceous earth). DE *should* be available at your local feed store and is sometimes called "crawling insect killer". Be sure you get food grade and not the kind used in swimming pools. DE contains the fossils of diatoms, which are spiky and pierce the worms and kill them. They won't hurt the tomato plants and will also kill other soft-bodied insects like aphids. You should wear a mask when using it because if you breathe a lot of the dust, it can irritate your lungs.

HTH, Tracey

-- Tracey (trjlanier@cs.com), July 03, 2001.

Whether or not it's humongous hornworms or the smaller caterpillars that I call "tobacco worms", they do a prodigious amount of damage, and are disgusting to boot. So far no one has mentioned BT (bacillus thuringiensis), which is a bacterium fatal to caterpillars and nothing else, as far as anyone knows. It is available in powder-form, usually, under the name Dipel, among others.

The thing is, though, it's only effective when the caterpillars are very young, and must be applied every 10 days or so. With large caterpillars, as revolting as this may sound, you need to simply pick them off the plants and dispose of them before they lay eggs. Some people have no problem with this whatsoever, but I confess it grosses me out big time. So I use BT from the get-go.

-- Leslie A. (lesliea@home.com), July 04, 2001.

As bad as I hate handpicking those nasty things, I do enjoy the revenge of feeding them to my chickens--evil grin and giggle. Do try the Bt if you can't stomach the handpicking. It works when you aren't there and gets the worms you don't see. Add a drop of dish detergent to make it stay on the leaves better. I usually do a foliar feed at the same time if the plants look a little stressed. This is really helpful if your soil isn't quite what it should be.

-- marilyn (rainbow@ktis.net), July 04, 2001.

Thank you--I can't find any hornworms (I have seen them before and also take a little revenge when I find one:) but I don't have any chickens to feed them to so I drop them in a jar of gasoline!!! I am surprised that they are inside the tomatoes! I haven't ever had them get that far---oh well. I am going to start hunting!!!!Thanks everyone.

-- Debbie T in NC (rdtyner@mindspring.com), July 04, 2001.

Debbie, We also have these holes appearing in the tomatoe fruit. Been growing toms for more than 40 years, and this is the first time had this particular problem. Finding brown worms, about the size of a horn worm, but definately not the horn worm. They seem to make two or three holes in each fruit then move on th the next one. Total ruin of each. Tried soap spray first,slowed them down a little, then used the soap and added about three oz of hot sauce per gallon of mix. Haven't found any new worms in about a week. We also have noticed a bright yellow (about the same shade as a zucchini flower) moth around the toms this year. Strange new bugs popping up here in eastern N.C. this year. Good luck with the hot sauce.

-- AL FERRY (almiyo@gsiwave.com), July 08, 2001.

One day I had no horn worms on my plants the next I found about 15 large ones and they had eaten a lot of leaves, I simply pulled them off and threw them in a bucket of water, they drowned and couldnt crawl up the slick sides, This seems to have taken care of them for the moment.

-- Chuck in Indiana (chuckzom@hotmail.com), August 01, 2001.