Our recent hot weather has not only helped our garden plants to grow, but it has also helped our garden pests to arrive a little earlier than usual. The Tobacco hornworm is showing up in local gardens with 3-inch ones present in at least one local garden. The hornworm caterpillar is the larva of a large moth, the Carolina Sphinx moth in the case of the Tobacco hornworm or the Five-spotted Hawkmoth in the case of the Tomato hornworm. The tobacco hornworm is the more common of the two.  

These caterpillars have huge appetites and, within a matter of days, can eat the foliage off of a tomato plant. When the leaves are gone, they eat the fruit. 

Check your eggplants, peppers, and potatoes because the hornworms like them, too.

To control, you can hand-pick them off. The only problem is that the hornworms are the same color as tomato foliage. However, at night, they glow when you shine a UV flashlight on them, which makes for easy pickings. 

If hornworm picking is not your thing, then use the organic insecticide Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). BT is non-toxic to bees, humans, mammals, pets, and birds but deadly for caterpillars.