Discussion: Hornworms

Picked two fat, juicy hornworms off the tomato plants this morning. Only one (Lg :( fruit damaged and some leaves lost. Will have to keep an eye out for others though. They're bloody hard to see. Same color as the plants. You have to follow the path of destruction to find them (bare green stems, large bite marks on fruit that look like deer or squirrel bites, and lots of caterpillar crap).

There was a squirrel incident this morning too, which is lucky, because I wouldn't have noticed the hornworms otherwise. I heard a ruckus on the deck and looked out to see the cat had cornered a squirrel at the top of the tomato enclosure corner posts. The squirrel kept leaping from one post to another (8 feet!), usually making it but sometimes scrambling along the top string, which it severely shredded. It was similar to the chipmunk incident earlier this summer.

There were two smaller hornworms on the potatoes yesterday. These had little rice-like egg shells all over their backs (parasitic wasp eggs). All appeared to have hatched. I threw these worms out into the grass so hopefully the wasps will emerge. Muahh ahh ahhhhh! The worms on the tomatoes were clean, so I squished them.

So, does Andy Murray have hornworms or squirrels ?

Murray and all his supporters looked like they has some kind of worm. It was all very miserable, he has no fight in him. It was a shame, fantastic to be there be it was difficult to fully appreciate just how well wawrinka was playing when Andy was dying out there. Luckily the doubles match before was fantastic, though the Bryan twins are pretty terrifying. I was happy to see real character and fun beat their very mechanical approach.

Ah ha, the rice like shells are parasitic wasps? I've seen a few of them too and will leave them there! We've had a couple of horn worms, they're very difficult to spot as you suggest.

Have you ever tried cutting the head off a hornworm with scissors? It's gross. Really really gross. I regretted that decision almost instantly.

Yeah, pretty disgusting. Although the green goo is just finely chopped tomato. Think of it as green tomato paste :) The one I stepped on yesterday squirted out nicely, but 5 mins later was crawling across the deck again.

Found a third one on the toms this morning. More leaves gone and another fruit damaged. This one had the wasp eggs on its back.