THAT!!!!!, my friends, is precisely what you DO NOT want to see on your Tomato plants.  It is a Tomato (or maybe a Tobacco) hornworm, fully grown from eating my tomato plant!!!  It is as big as my index finger!!!  Well, it was, before Jon squished it!!!  

 

It is the larva of Manduca quinquemaculata, the five-spotted hawk moth.  The caterpillars feed on various plants from Solanaceae:  tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, tobacco, potatoes.  You definitely do NOT want them in your garden.  They can demolish your tomato crop overnight!!!!  We plant Borage near the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants to deter the moths from laying eggs on those host plants.  It works!!!  We've had NO hornworms in the garden.  This one was on a cherry tomato plant on the deck, away from the garden.  And, as you can see, the plant was just about finished.

 

Tom asked me the other day, "What is that big, fat green caterpillar on my tomato plant?"  We knew immediately, because we've seen so many before.  

 

Oh!!!!!  Here's another interesting thing about them.  There are parasitic wasps that lay their eggs inside the skin of the hornworms, using the hornworm bodies to feed their babies.  You can see them sometimes as little white cocoons on the outside of the green hornworm.  It's kinda gross, but, everybody has to eat something, right?  I know it happens, I just don't want to see it happening in MY garden.

 

HAPPY GARDENING!!!