Tomato Worms

[Mossy Rock]

I have found 3 tomato worms this year after noticing leaves being eaten I fed them to my chickens, have others been affected by these worms?

 

[Tutter]

I think that a good portion of tomato growers come across them. But so far *knock on wood* I've not.

I'm glad that you only have them in small numbers, and hope it stays that way!

 

[OaklandCityFarmer]

We have in the past.

But for some reason haven't seen them at all for the past 3 or 4 seasons. Who knows.

I actually kind of like them.

 

[Dace]

I get them...this year it seems there are only a few. I picked off several but I know there is probably more ....I hope I am not doing my tomatoes a disservice by turning a blind eye to a few worms!

 

[Tutter]

You're not, Dace.

Part of growing without stress, and as people have for the eons, is learning that:

#1 ~ It's okay if everything's not perfect. A few holes in the leaves are fine.

#2 It's okay to share, within' reason, with other critters. I mean, how many billions of bugs are there per square foot on earth? How can we reasonably expect to keep our plants free of them completely? In nature all plants have bugs on them, and they live century after century with that relationship.

It's a matter of balance, as are most things. If you don't use poisons to kill one segment of critters in your environment, generally speaking the others balance out and keep things reasonable.

Take my caterpillers, for example. I've never seen more of these, which are gorgeous with blue on them etc. They were falling from the trees in the hundreds, literally, and were all over some plants in the shade garden.

We just collected big containers of them from the shade garden, and put them over in the berry bushes. The ones all over the place elsewhere, we ignored.

Pretty scary, eh? But not really. We also had more birds than ever this year, and they ate them until they were fat and sassy. (wild birds, that is.) We had no more damage from them than we would have had if there had been less of them.

Now, even in my situation, things could have become unbalanced. 4 years ago we had a terrible die-off of birds from West Nile. Had that happened this year, the caterpillers would have been too many in their numbers, and I might have had to do more than relocate some of them.

Generally, if you find more aphids, you will also note more ladybugs. Balance.

Of course, you have to do your part and keep your plants as healthy as possible, since weak/struggling/stressed plants tend to be attacked. And there are times when we get hit with too many bugs for many reasons, even if it's someone elses doing that things have unbalanced, but as long as it's just a few caterpillers, than, truthfully, that's as it should be, and you did the right thing.

If we want butterflies and moths, we've got to grow a few caterpillers. :happy_flower

 

[Dace]

Thank you, Tutter that was very well said and it is what I am trying to accomplish balance rather than total world (garden) domination and control! LOL...

I think one of the reasons that the caterpillars have not gotten out of hand is that I have many birds in and around my garden. I put a couple of feeders out to encourage them to visit and in turn the eat many of the bugs.

I like your philosophy and I think it is the healthiest approach for us all

 

[Aspen]

We have had quite a few, but it has become a game to see who can get the most to feed to the chickens!