My caterpillar dilemma is obviously still a problem because I continued to find them eating my precious tomato plant this week. I was done getting mad and throwing them over my balcony railing. At this point, I'd had enough and was going to spray the little suckers!
You can hardly see the lil' sucker.
Trust me - they hide well!
I wanted to be sure I was getting the right stuff to kill 'em, so while trimming away the eaten leaves Friday afternoon I decided I would keep one of the little guys to show the workers at the nursery. I put the little bugger that was munching away on a delicious tomato leaf into an empty butter container and took him with me to the Sperling Nursery today. Sure enough, he was a little tomato worm like I'd suspected. This isn't the horned tomato worm, but the lady at the nursery arrured me those could still be coming. Thanks lady! :(
I ended up coming home with the following:
And the most expensive spray bottle I've ever purchased.
Oh just another time I wish I had a garden hose...
After confirming with my dad and mom that I had my calculations correct for the water and worm killer concentrate, I mixed up the solution and went to town spraying the heck outta my tomato plant. I covered every leaf on both the top and the bottom. By the time I was done, the plant was DRIPPING.
I tried it the natural way, but I had to give in. I used the most "organic" spray I could find. After all this, I'm going to be very upset if the little worms are still eating my crops!
Thanks Robyn for sharing the link! These caterpillars are evil. We sprayed last night. Here's hoping it works! We have the little guys AND the giant horn worms. Ugh. I've had aphids, green worms, horn worms, slugs, and gnat problems. Granted, it's our first year at this, but MAN! Luckily, everything seems to have survived the attacks so far.
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