They should come back with some weekly liquid fertilizer. The hornworms are
just coming out in my tomatoes too. I found several "droppings" and leaves
and tomatoes chewed off. It's been raining since yesterday (remnants of
Tropical Storm Bill), so this morning we had a dry spell between some more
nasty looking dark clouds. Well, I went out and dusted all my tomatoes and
peppers with Bt Powder or Dipel Dust (same thing). It is a biological
(organic) that targets caterpillars and chewing larvae (hornworms). Within
24 hrs. I should see dangling caterpillars hanging from the branches. I'll
probably re-apply this weekend, as I'm sure the rain will wash some away.
I'm just hoping to get round 1 of them killed off.

Good luck.

Penny
Zone 7b - North Carolina
"Lisa" wrote in message
. ..
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?

--
Lisa