Yep -- insecticidal soap. Got mixed up. They ate the undersides of most of
the green tomatoes, but on the plus side -- I've got lots of flowers on the
stems they didn't manage to scarf down. We must have pulled off at least
10-15 of the things on about 4 plants. It was horrible. LOL -- I almost
cried.

Lisa


B.Server wrote in message
...
On Tue, 01 Jul 2003 23:27:13 GMT, "Lisa"
wrote:

Hey all -- was gone for the weekend and went to take a look at the garden
yesterday (which up until this weekend was doing A-OK). Well, my
beautiful
tomato plants were all branches and limbs. No leaves. No tomatoes. Got
to
looking closely to see what the heck happened to my plants and there were
horrible green horned caterpillars. Looked them up and discovered they
were
hornworms. Some of the biggest, fattest, ugliest caterpillars I have
ever
seen. Peeled off and destroyed as many as we could find and then sprayed
herbicidal soap on what was left. Are my plants ruined? Am I done for
the
season? Or will they come back and produce?


Hungry little buggers, aren't they? I sure hope that what you sprayed
was insecticidal soap (even though it would do no good on a hornworm)
rather than herbicidal. (both exist) Depending on where you are
(length of season), the plants will likely come back and bear. You
must have had them for a while, as it takes a week or more of eating
for them to get finger sized. Odd that they got the fruit. Mine
usually eat nothing but leaves and young stems. Of course, the
missing foliage eventually ruins the fruit, too.

Make sure you check out any other tomato relatives (solanacea) like
capsicums, tomatillo, and eggplant. They will do a job on these as
well.