NGC-Hornworms

[redrider]

Damned pests! Invaded one of my tomato plants. So far, only one affected but the hunt is on. Specifically, I have tobacco hornworms and I need some wasp colonies.

[Chuck in Indiana]

Dorcia has found that if you pick it off and smash it between two bricks, it will squirt out on her leg..

[John A]

The bug or the tomato?

[donn]

[Dofin]

Ummmy, pan fried Hornworm and fried green tomato!!  Show them buggers what they get for messing with your garden.  Excellent source of protein and when cooked in olive oil very good for you!!

[normzone]

They sure are wild looking creatures...they get fat fast. Kill 'em all, let the birds sort them out 

[lucian]

damn things are hard to spot too, excellent camo for a tomato plant. I found the easiest way to locate one is by there droppings on the leaves , just follow them up the plant to the source. I threw a big one out in the street a couple years ago and two blue jays fought savagely over it, didn't end well for the caterpillar.

Another regular nuisance on our tomato's has been the crows. Last year we lost a bunch to them , found them smashed all over the yard. An old timer told me that they just want the juice for a drink and if you leave some water out for them they will leave your tomato's alone. I say feed em lead.

[normzone]

    Talk is cheap and lead is noisy - get a bow and a recipe   

[Guzzistajohn]

We don't have those in the ozarks but we do have the Japanese Beatles. She ruvs you yea yea, with a ruv like that, you know you should be grad.

[Sasquatch Jim]

 When I was young my wife raised tomatos in the garden.  One day she found a huge green garden slug on a tomato vine.  It was about 4 inches long and fat.  I loaded up a hypodermic syringe with alcohol and mainlined it to the fatso.
 About an hour later I went out to the garden and found it still clinging by its' mouth to the vine but it had relaxed itself to death and was then about a foot long  still dangling from the vine.  She bought some slug bait.
 In Oregon they were not sure what should be the state animal.  The final two candidates were the garden slug and the gypo logger as in those days they were in about equal numbers.

[rodekyll]

   Talk is cheap and lead is noisy - get a bow and a recipe   

Here's the crow pie recipe we learned as kids:

pence (6)
rye (pocketful)
blackbirds (24)
pie crust (1)

Bake into pie.
Do not open pie in front of king.

[redrider90]

Damned pests! Invaded one of my tomato plants. So far, only one affected but the hunt is on. Specifically, I have tobacco hornworms and I need some wasp colonies.

No better sight than seeing a fat horn worm loaded down with those white parasite wasps on its back. Those are the ones I leave on the vines.

[Sheepdog]

Bass love them...

[Tom]

"If it looks good.  Eat it!"  Andrew Zimmern.  Bizarre Foods.    "Uh....it don't look good." me. 

[atavar]

"If it looks good.  Eat it!"  Andrew Zimmern.  Bizarre Foods.    "Uh....it don't look good." me. 

Umm, Tom, while spending time in the Arizona Desert I was always told that everything there is either ugly, painful or poisonous so I should never eat any local flora or fauna that was attractive *and* didn't try to hurt me.. 

[Tom]

Everything looks better cooked.    Skunk pig, jack rabbit, rattle snake.  Stew then shred the meat.  Some stuff would have to be processed.  I lived in Mesa for about 9 years.  A pistol, sharp knife, matches and salt/pepper.

[atavar]

BTW, hornworms can be great fun to hunt with a pellet rifle and if done right does not do much damage to the tomatoes. Much more satisfying than picking them off. 

[normzone]

Wow, what does your taxidermist say when you bring the biggest ones to him for mounting?

[Tom]

"Lunch" ?   

[redrider]

You might try hanging red Christmas tree ornaments on your tomato vines.  The birds peck them to no avail, and decide there's something wrong with your plants.  I think this needs to happen before your tomatoes start to ripen though...

(Yeah, my life is weird.)

She's not weird-my wife did the same as a prank on her father and she tied plastic bananas on my newly planted banana tree.(Our niece was visiting and in on it) I was halfway to the plant when my brain screamed "Sucker!" Years later, we still have fun like that.

[rodekyll]

Some joker hung dozens of pink garden flamingos in the trees along the ferry route.  Almost every time I'm on the boat some tourist notices them and everyone starts taking pictures of the Alaska tree-dwelling flamingos.  Nobody notices that they're plastic and faded from 30 years of hanging in the trees.

[redrider]

Laughter truly IS the best medicine.

[Sasquatch Jim]

  A diet of red plastic makes those flamingos pink in Alaska.

[redrider90]

Well good luck eating tomato hornworms as the leaves of tomato plants, just like potato plants are toxic to humans. I would expect that deep frying one of these fat worms after eating a fresh meal of tomato leaves would give you a might belly ache and them some.
Well I googled "eating tomato hornworms" and found a few hits of people who claim to have eaten them. If true then the hornworm much quickly digest the toxin making it eatable to humans. I still wouldn't take the chance.

[Tom]

They process cassava into edible carbohydrates eliminating cyanide.  Working on hornworms is certainly possible.  Whether one would want to is another story.  Risk vs. reward thing.

[Robert]

damn things are hard to spot too, excellent camo for a tomato plant. I found the easiest way to locate one is by there droppings on the leaves , just follow them up the plant to the source.

In the still of the morning, listen.  Crunch, crunch.

Or, jiggle the plant limbs a little. The ones that keep swinging slowly have a heavy worm on them.

And of course they hang upside down under a leaf, blending in.

Near the Fourth of July, we would tie a worm to a firecracker.  A satisfying splat of green juice.

[Tom]

Okay, found this.......https://forums.egullet.org/topic/70430-green-tomato-hornworms/  Must be true it's on the internet.

[Sasquatch Jim]

  Horn worms are big enough to cut steaks from.  I've seen some that probably burn diesel.