To kill tomato worms naturally, mix some liquid dish soap and water in a spray bottle, spray it on the tomato plant, and then shake some Cayenne pepper onto the plant and on the tomatoes. The soap kills the worms, and the cayenne pepper will keep them away if the soap washes off of the plant and they try to come back.
Many gardeners use a product called Sevin to control a multitude of insects. Including green tomato hornworm (and tobacco worms, too). You can buy Sevin in either a powder or spray form. There are also many other options for insecticides besides Sevin at your local garden center.
Control: Begin applying weekly sprays for fruitworms as soon as tomatoes begin to bloom and set fruit. Products containing spinosad will control fruitworms, but products containing pyrethroid insecticides (permethrin, cyfluthrin, bifenthrin) will control fruitworms as well as stink bugs and leaffooted bugs.
Yes they can do a lot of damage but a healthy tomatoe can recover. Also the parasitic wasps that create the cocoons go to work quickly. Given time and room to work, I've found we get a stable balance pretty quickly. There is a bell curve in horn worm presence and damage but also in parasitation and recovery.
Pluck the worms by hand and place them in soapy water to kill them, or spray your plant with a mix of water, cayenne pepper, and dish soap for a natural insecticide. Interplanting dill, basil, and.or marigolds may keep worms away too.
Sevin Insect Killer Ready to Spray for hose-end spraying with a regular garden hose makes quick work of treatment. Just attach the container to your hose — it measures and mixes automatically as you spray. Cover all plant surfaces thoroughly, including undersides of leaves and hidden stems.
Natural enemies are very important in the biological control of tomato fruitworm. These include predators such as minute pirate bugs, bigeyed bugs, and the parasitic wasps Trichogramma spp. and Hyposoter exiguae. Monitor for the presence of these and other parasites and predators.
Handpick these caterpillars (drop them in soapy water as you pick them). Holes chewed in tomatoes can be the work of slugs. There is nothing worse than picking a tomato and finding a slug happily working its way through it. Slugs can be thwarted with iron phosphate-based slug pellets and beneficial nematodes.
Fruit trees: Neem oil can be used on fruit trees such as apple, cherry, nectarine, pear, peach, and plum. Use to control aphids, spider mites, caterpillars, coddling moth, meal worms, powdery mildew, scab, rust, and black spot.
Make a Deterrent spray
“You can use a homemade garden spray to manage the hornworm population and a useful and effective recipe for hornworms is a mixture of cayenne pepper, water, and soap,” says Kantor.
No, vinegar doesn't kill insects but repels them. For an effective mixture, make a 50/50 mixture of vinegar and water. It should keep regular insects such as flies, mealybugs, centipedes and millipedes away from your plants. Do not spray directly on plants.
Fortunately, GardenTech Sevin brand insecticides easily control hornworms. Sevin Insect Killer Ready to Use2 and its easy-to-use sprayer container make it simple to treat specific plants and kill hornworms on contact with a targeted spray.
Hornworms can be hard to see initially because their color blends in well with green plant foliage. They tend to hide during the day beneath leaves and emerge to feed at dusk, so that tends to be the easiest time to spot them.
There's one situation gardening experts agree can call for supplementing with Epsom salt—that's when your tomato plants have a magnesium deficiency. "Magnesium deficiency usually appears as leaves with bright green ribs and veins and otherwise discolored areas of yellow, red, or brown," Koehn says.
Many gardeners use eggs in the garden to boost soil nutrients. Try putting eggshells in your compost. You can also plant eggshells or a whole egg in the hole before planting tomato plants.
Plant your tomatoes in the full sun (8+ hours) at least 3-4 feet apart, leaving space between plants. This will discourage slugs, which cannot withstand the sun and avoid open ground. Apply BT spray, which is also approved for organic gardening, if tomato hornworms or other caterpillars attack your plants and fruits.
Contact insecticides such as bifenthrin, cypermethrin, cyhalothrin, permethrin, and esfenvalerate are effective in controlling stink bugs, leaf-footed bugs, aphids, fruitworms, and hornworms (See Tables 1 and 2). Do not use permethrin on tomato varieties with fruit less than one inch in diameter.
By not killing hornworms, you provide an opportunity for more beneficial wasps to help control the pest population in your garden. These small, slender-bodied wasps are considered an important biological control method for many gardening pests including aphids, beetle larvae, sawflies, and other unwanted caterpillars.