Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk AL Garden and Farm Chek your tomatoes, found 2 hornworms today...

That's damned good advice taken too late. But the next one, guarantee I'll relocate. Thank you for that.

Usually they look like little grenades or pineapples, these were smooth. I’ll definitely keep an eye out though. So far all my plants are healthy. I did have one limb of my Tabasco peppers laying on the ground one day but when I looked at it, it appeared to be pulled off, it had a trailing of “bark” skin kind of like when you rip a branch off a sapling. Probably one of the idiot cats. That was a week or two ago but everything is holding out okay.

I’m not above spraying mine with Sevin preventatively but collectively the peppers have a lot of blooms and I see bees on them often so I won’t unless I really felt I had to, at this point.

Two more today. Damned things are relentless. Gonna have to check twice a day now.

Yeah it sounds like you are covered in them. You might need to go after the eggs to break the lifecycle. They’re probably extremely small and hard to see though. So the next best thing would probably be to have something that gets them as they hatch. If you are trying to stay “organic” or as least chemical as possible then I’d probably spray every leaf front and back with insecticidal soap. Spinosad should kill the them as they hatch because they’ll go to feed and ingest residual, and it’s still considered “organic” and milder than something like bifentherin or Sevin. It’s made from soil bacterium. If you spray it at night or whenever the bees aren’t foraging they should be fine.

Stores like Tractor Supply or Home Depot are sure to have some under the Captain Jack brand. https://www.amazon.com/Bonide-704725-Captain-Concentrate-1-Quart/dp/B001VJ83LW

You could also dust the underside of the leaves with Diatomaceous Earth

(For full disclosure I would have already busted out my bottle of Sevin concentrate lol).

Problem with spraying is it has rained every single day at my place. It doesn't last 24 hours. I'm checking every morning now. My wife during the day once or twice. I'm again checking when I get home from work.

With the rain, it's really the best I can do for now.

Well, lucky on the rain part at least. It’s barely rains around here and when it does it’s not even enough to wet the ground.

You could hang a bug zapper out there to try to kill/distract the moths that lay the eggs. Or have a bright light a bit away from but pointed at the tomatoes to disrupt them.

I've got a solar bug zapper, it keeps the majority gone. I may need to reposition it.

If you're not against spraying, sevin will take care of the problem. I sprayed mine when I saw the first hornworms and haven't seen another one. That was several weeks ago.

I've sprayed several times. But it rains at my place nearly every day. Washes it right off.

Found one two days ago. Killed it. Scanned yesterday. Nothing.

Today, 13 so far. Waiting on dark to check for more.

Update. 21 removed. Whole damned mason jar full of em

Man you got them bad.

They tearing up my last tomato plants pretty good.

The summer monsoons destroyed my tomatoes. Only thing that’s flourishing is cayanne and sweet banana peppers. Can’t keep them picked quick enough

I used my leaf blower and 7 dust power to cover everything last night. We will see.

My tomatoes were thriving before the worms. Peppers are too.