OMG!!! help, what is it?????

[Bec]

I love them!! Well....to a point I guess. The most romantic thing my husband has done all summer was surprise me with horn worm on a stick! Seriously...he knows how much I love them and he came in like had flowers behind his back...but only better!!!! Now Thats love!!
We kept them in a small talk outside and they are in their cacoons (sp?)

 

[moenmitz]

Gotta say, I am not crazy about putting poison on things I eat. Last year, someone told me to use cayenee pepper after I found giant holes in my cabbages and my pepper plants were lopped off by cut worms. I did, picked off the bad leaves, and had no further problem with ANY pest in the garden. Did not affect the taste of my plants either. Dont know if it would repel tomato worms, but I would try it before I used any chemical.

 

[therealsilkiechick]

wow, ya all have been chatty while i was working at the fair all day,lol. thank you so much everyone we have learned alot. we have been seeing lots of the moths but never knew they were the same thing till we just saw the pics or the names of either of them. my kid's call them hummingbird bees,lol. here they look like litle hummers the size of bees.

this is our first real gardens this year and although creeped out at first we r excited that we have a new visitor. it's actually the first thing we've seen messing with the plants. we cut off the piece of plant it was on and it is in a jar with it. tomarrow we'll add dirt to it too. i have 5 kid's and they have never got to see anything cacoon to turn into anything i think it would be a great experience for them to be a part of and see and to get to release it. specially since they love to catch them at my friends house all the time.

i couldn't feed it to my chooks i'd get sick, rotfl. tomarrow i'll check all the plants see if there is anymore before we head up for our last fair day. i have sevin but i can't use it i'm highly allergic to it so we'll try the other idea someone listed with soap i think it was see how that works first or just removeing them.

thanks so much for the info, links and pics!! i'll see if i can take pics of it as it becomes a moth to share with ya.
silkie

 

[Wynette]

I just did a search on "tomato worms" and found this thread - was wondering if they taste nasty to chickens or something, because I put 2 in the chicken run last night....they pecked at them once, then walked away. This morning, they were still lying right where I put them last night (not great pics - from my cell phone camera):

 

[Yoko]

my mom gets those all the time in her tomatoe plants!except if i were you id get busy picking those worms off,my mom doesnt pick them off her plants, and their barely alive,its like,why keep them now?

 

[fluffernutter08]

yeah they creep me out too. I take the worm and the leaf it's on and pull the whole dang thing off the plant. My girls fight over them. Chickens love japaneese Beattles too. If your birds don't free range at least let them out (attended) about a half hour before true sunset. They'll eat tons of bugs and then line up to go inside to roost before dark. We don't have any bug problems at our house

 

[smom1976]

we have found 5 on the tomatos this year.. First time ever to have tomato plants we have 5 tomato plants too. but we found three on one plant and one on two other plants.

The chickens do love them.. My polish didnt really go for them.. but my black sex links loved them and when they got a hold of them then of course everyone wanted them. I am hoping that I can get them all off..

Does anyone know if they start real small in the dirt? Just wondering because I had some larve looking things in the dirt earlier about 3 weeks ago now these HUGE buggers.

 

[Windy Ridge]

We have the hummingbird clearwings. They're lovely. I don't have a problem with the caterpillars. Small-flowered plants like thyme attract the parasitic wasps. I imagine all the Queen Anne's lace around here is helpful, too. Carrot-family members usually attract the good bugs!

I prefer companion planting as a method for controlling pests. The chickens help.

I think things can get all out of whack, though, if everyone around you is using pesticides. All the "good" bugs may be dead for miles around. Luckily, we're the only folks for a good, long way...

 

[kinnip]

We just discovered our first hornworm infestation of the season! The chickens had a feast and I had a giggle watching my BF squeal like a little girl when he touched one.

 

[ccmarie]

My family's chickens love them! My brothers used to go catch grubs or these hornworms or anything they could find just to see the chickens eat them.