tomato leaves eaten....

 Hello All,

I was a little disturbed to find half my tomato plants leaves eaten off this
morning. Seems some sort of critter picked all the leaves clean off. He ate
all the tomato leaves off the plants that we not in cages, I had intended to
stake them. My neighbor had an opossum in their yard last year. Maybe it was
another opossum? I've never had anything disturb my tomato plants before. It
looks like he might have tried a pepper plant but didn't like them. Garlic,
onions, radishes, green beans, and lettuce all we untouched. Any suggestion
on how to save my remaining and replacement tomatoes?

Thanks in advance,

Craig
Staten Island, NY

 

Probably tomatoe hornworm...
They can be VERY rapidly destructive!

Find the critter, kill it, then most of the leaves should grow back.

You can spray the plant with liquid sevin. It biodegrades.

K.

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Please read up on Sevin before you use it.  It does biodegrade, but it's
more complicated than that:
http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/extoxnet/carbaryl-dicrotophos/carbaryl-ext.html

http://www.pesticide.org/carbaryl1.pdf

http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/NewScience/wildlife/frogs/2001relyeaandmills.htm

Sue

--
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Zone 6, South-central PA

 In article


Look, I know that pesticides are bad and work hard to develop my
biocontrol. Lizards, snakes, toads, spiders, assasin bugs and ladybird
beetles are all welcome in my garden and there are plenty of them.

But when it comes to rapid destruction by critters such as hornworms,
there is a time and a place for pesticides and sevin is the most benign
of them!

I try to hand pick them, but the little bastards are hard to spot!!!

And they do oh so much damage oh so quickly. :-(

Pans of beer work for slugs and snails. Dark Ale seems to attract far
more of them than cheap beer but that does not atttract hornworms. ;-)

I try, I really do, to stay as organic as possible, but sometimes it's
just not practical!

K.

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 In article <KatraMungBean-
86D8A2.09200310052004@corp.supernews.com>,
KatraMungBean@centurytel.net says...

I thought malathion was less dangerous than Sevin?  Seems to me
I remember reading it wasn't harmful to anything with a
functioning liver, as the liver converted it to something
harmless.

But Sevin is the best spray for cornsilks :-).

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