Did
you ever read the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar? For those of you that
haven’t heard of it, it is a children’s book about a caterpillar that eats
everything it can find, builds a chrysalis, and turns into a butterfly.
As
cute as the story may be, in the real life garden version it is not so cute. We
have our very own, very real, very hungry caterpillars that like to eat tomato plants.
They are called Tomato Hornworms and they are indeed VERY hungry.
They’re
still kind of cute like the story but in a creepy bug sort of way… These,
actually pretty large, caterpillars have been known to defoliate entire fields
if they go unchecked! I found a few of these guys on our old tomatoes in the
greenhouse. I check the plants regularly so that goes to show how quickly they
can work! Luckily these plants are at the end of their production cycle and
isolated from the field. They can’t do any damage to the production crops so
don’t worry, no tomato plants were harmed in the making of this blog post. It’s
amazing how much a few caterpillars can eat.
If
you spot any of these buggers in your garden, there is usually no need to fret.
As Kermit might say it’s hard being green. Well, for these guys it’s harder
being big so they have two strikes going against them. Tomato hornworms have a
huge list of predators and it is hard for them to hide anywhere due to their
size. Remember the ferocious ladybug from my previous post? Ladybugs are one of
the most fearsome predators in the garden. I know you wouldn’t think it by
looking at them but they hunt down all sorts of pests from aphids to hornworm
eggs. Yes, they’ll make hornworm egg omelets and eat them for breakfast! If the
hornworms do happen to escape the mean ladybugs and hatch into caterpillars,
they run into all sorts of new predators. The common paper wasp loves to snatch
them up along with their biggest predator the braconid wasp which is a small
wasp that actually parasitizes the hornworms. I won’t go into detail about what
they do, but in the end it involves hornworms not being a problem for your
tomatoes… Nature is crazy!
If none of the predators feel like picking up the slack you
can always just pull them off the plants and get rid of them by hand. Hornworms
don’t usually exist in massive numbers and they are so big they’re very easy to
find. No spray necessary. Although, if you find one with white pods all over
its back, that means the braconid wasp already found it and you should leave it
alone. It’ll actually help your garden. Again, won’t go into detail…
The real crazy part is that once the
caterpillars become moths they are actually beneficial to the garden. Once they
emerge from their chrysalis, the hornworm becomes the five-spotted hawk moth;
which sounds a whole lot cooler than ‘hornworm.’
They are very large and actually kind of pretty. They are
also one of the only creatures that can hover like a hummingbird. Once they
reach the adult stage they eat only nectar from plants which means that when
the bees go to bed for the night, the moths come out and take over the
pollination night shift. Unfortunately, the help they give as adults, doesn’t
make up for the sheer destruction they leave in their path as caterpillars and
are still considered pests. If they don’t leave any tomato plants left, then
there’s no reason for them to pollinate!
Get to know your farm!
