I think I've been extraordinarily lucky to have only seen them once in
30+years. Now, deer are another story. My tomatoes are in cylindrical cages.
everything outside the cages is nibbled. They eat all new leaf growth on the
sweet potatoes, as well the cantelope vines. I discreetly tried to hire a
bow hunter friend as a hit man, but he's not into doing Sopranos-style
contract work.


"Jangchub" wrote in message
...
They are tiny when they are hatched, so while you're correct about
size, that is a fully mature larva.

On Sun, 13 Aug 2006 04:00:20 GMT, "JoeSpareBedroom"
wrote:

They are definitely NOT hard to spot. They're the size of an adult's thumb
sometimes! The first time I saw one, I was working in the garden and
(before
playing in a band wrecked my ears), I heard something chewing. I followed
the sound and found this monster. Pretty impressive, though. Like a garden
pest created by Disney. :-)

"Andrew Ostrander" wrote in message
...
Google confirms what I thought: tomato hormworms are the caterpillars
of
a
large and beautiful moth. They do not winter in the soil. Google
articles
also say that hornworms are large and can be easily picked off. I
suspect
that you do not have hormworms at all. Do you see large caterpillars
with
horns???


"cathych" wrote in message
ups.com...
Every year I am beseiged by tomato hornworms. This year I faithfully
used diamotateous earth, thinking that of course, this would eradicate
the problem. Well, several days ago, my cherry tomatoes, my peppers,
(all different kinds), as well as my larger tomatoes were full of
blooms, really loving the hot rainy weather. Today I went out & checked
for any developing cucumbers, & guess what? All of the blooms had been
EATEN entirely, there is not a single one of them left. How can I get
rid of these things once & for all? I have been changing out my potting
soil entirely each growing season, thinking that this might have been
the problem, but apparently they are living somewhere.