Tomatoes and worms

We normally shut up the end doors on our high tunnels every evening and then open them every morning. We do this in case of storms, but also our cats stay in the tunnels overnight so with the doors closed they are pretty safe. We lose some cats every year to what we figure are the coyotes or foxes. Many times I walk through the tunnels as we are shutting them up, and I notice that some of the top branches were stripped of leaves. This is a perfect example of tomato hornworms.

When you find them most will be close to 3 inches long and almost 1/2-inch in diameter. They are really hard to see even when you know they are on the plant. When we saw where the worms had stripped the branches, we began to look for them on the stems or branches close to the bare stems and usually on the top half of the tomato plant. With persistence we began to find those leaf-eating rascals. Marge found more than I did. She found a bunch of them.

The next morning I began spraying our tomatoes with Bt or Bacillus thuringiensis. I buy a water-soluble powder that I mix with water in my two-gallon sprayer. It works really well for me. Bt also comes in a powder which you can dust on your plants. One example of this powder you can dust directly on your plants is Dipel Dust.

What Bt does is mess up the digestive tract of the worms. Information says that once the worm eats some of the Bt, his digestive tract shuts down completely in two hours. Bt is reportedly the most-used pesticide in the world. Bt isn't harmful to animals or humans or bees or really anything but worms. It is deadly to the big tomato hornworms.

But when you find the big hornworms, if you look real careful you will probably find a small worm about the size of the lead in a No. 2 pencil and about an inch long, and this worm will be close to the stem on your tomatoes. The big hornworm will eat the leaves or maybe even eat on the surface of the tomato, but these little worms will eat their way into the tomato right by the stem. You honestly won't know they are there until you pick the tomato, and it's pretty much spoiled. The hole will be about the size of the head on a needle. But there will be a cavity under the stem and down into the tomato.

When I spray the Bt on the tomato's leaves I also make sure that the top of every tomato gets sprayed. If that little bugger has eaten into the tomato, the spray will seep into the tomato and get him. If he is planning on eating his way in, the spray on the tomato will get him. This spray works. In about a week to 10 days the plants will grow new leaves. I spray every week to 10 days. I make sure the tomatoes get sprayed then as well.

Cabbage is another veggie that worms simply love. The worms are about an inch long and say 1/8-inch or so in diameter. Normally you won't see the worms, but you will see where they have just riddled the leaves of your cabbage. Dust the cabbage with Bt in the form of Dipel Dust. It won't hurt you nor the bees nor your cats nor dogs nor chickens, but it will kill the cabbage worms. Bt works also on kale or kohlrabi, when the worms are tearing up the leaves on them. When it rains, I simply dust them again. You can spray them with Bt, but cabbage has a slick surface and spray won't stick unless you have a surfactant in the spray. I like Dipel Dust for cabbage and kale.

Pretty much all the garden stores or even some hardware stores will have Bt or Dipel Dust or a similar product. If you have questions drop me an email.