Found these on my tomato and pepper plants. Where did they come from? I inspect my plants daily - I live in apt and have containers on my patio. These things are killing my babies! 😢

yes. The tomato horn worm is the larva of a night flying moth (Manduca quinquemaculata) Hawk moth. In your environment, twice weekly hand removal is your best bet. https://extension.umn.edu/yard...

They amaze me, they hide so well until one day they are huge and you see lots of bare stems. Hopefully you got them all now. I have 8 tomatoes, 6 peppers, and the same many years now, and rarely find them. So they aren't always very common. You just got ' lucky' maybe.

I stopped dusting my tomatoes since it's towards the end of the season- that and several big garden spiders have moved in and set up webs.. I try to check every few days for the worms now, but they do work fast! I killed 6 yesterday and 2 more today, one covered in eggs.

If you mean by'' eggs'' white things on the worm , you should leave that worm it is carrying a parasitic wasp case they are good guys

The spiders are friends, too.

gardengus said:If you mean by'' eggs'' white things on the worm , you should leave that worm it is carrying a parasitic wasp case they are good guys

I just assumed it was eggs from the worm. So a worm with the white larva/eggs- is better left alive for them to hatch and combat the worms??

Nice to know!

nmoasis said:The spiders are friends, too.

Of course! That's why I stopped dusting. Although they prevent my wife from wanting to pick tomatoes lol.