Tomato Hornworms Totally Eco-friendly control

 

This is an article from Leslie Doyle at Sweet Tomato Test Garden

There are a couple of reasons I don't have tomato hornworms on my plants          

#1.  I use Silver Reflective Mulch on the soil under the plants.     

#2.  I swat the moth that lays the egg that hatches the tomato hornworm - pix above 

#1 works really well; this is why.  The Sphinx moth, pix above, lays an egg on the underside of the leaf (you probably will never find it/them).  The egg hatches and the hornworm begins to eat your plants - really fast; they are eating machines. When the large hornworm reaches a certain size/age it drops down to the soil and burrows-in where it metamorphosizes into a moth that crawls out of the soil and matures and lays and egg on your plant - repeat this a couple of times year-after-year. (Some gardeners are raising these insects.)

The Silver Reflective Mulch stops this burrowing in and out of the soil - the hornworm can not crawl into the soil to metamorphosize into the moth and the moth cannot crawl out of the soil through this mulch.  From a new gardener's perspective; the gardener that puts down silver reflective mulch for the first time, when planting, is preventing last years hornworms, which have metamorphozised into a moth, from crawling out of the soil.  They stay there and die.

Which brings up thingy # 2 as the other thing to do.

#2.  I call this insect control method SSPM - Sip and Swat Pest Management.  The moths are out at night, (they belong to my neighbors), and can be found near my porch light about cocktail time (cool timing). For others like me, who get bored-to-death sitting around with nothing to do, swatting the Sphinx moth is better than watching TV.  I get lots of bang for the buck out of a fly swatter and a cool drink on a warm summer night - and it's personally very satisfying for me to kill this moth. 

OK - I suppose I am going to hear from the eco-nuts about the rights of this moth.  Well - bring it on.  But do this at my house about cocktail time. Note; I'll be busy swatting moths, so, you bring the wine and I'll listen to you.