A Little Story About a Worm and a Wasp

This is a Tomato Hornworm and can be a real pest in the garden, particularly if you hope to enjoy any tomatoes you've planted. They can eat all the leaves clean off of a tomato plant in what seems like lightning speed. Large, fat, and the perfect shade of green, the coloring of their body allows them to munch away incognito.

Often, people go hunting for them on their plants, hoping to get to the caterpillars before they really dig in. You can spend hours and hours picking them off. As for what to do with them after that, some gardeners pull them apart at the middle and some find they make the perfect snack for their hen friends- hey, it's the circle of life!

But not everyone knows that if you, the gardener, just hold back a little bit longer, there's more in store for the Hornworm than you could have even guessed. I'll admit, it was so difficult for me to stand back and watch some of our tomato leaves disappear into thin air. But David assured me that Nature had a trick up her sleeve. About two weeks ago, I was walking among our rows of tomato plants when all of the sudden a large bit of white color caught my eye amongst the leaves.

And here is what I saw.

See, there is a wasp, known as the Parasitic Wasp, that lays its eggs inside of the unsuspecting Tomato Hornworm. As they hatch, they eat their way outside of the Hornworm's body, killing it. It's quite a disgusting little show, but the end result is a healthy, happy tomato.

Today, I was out gathering the first little cherry tomatoes and peered through the long row of plants. I couldn't see any signs of worms or recent worm damage, so it does seem to be a very good solution, so long as you have a good little ecosystem around your garden that includes helpers like the parasitic wasps.

If by chance, the wasps don't seem to be showing up to your garden and you don't have any hungry chickens on hand, one of the best controls is to use 'companion plants'. Plant things like carrots, dill, fennel, parsley, or Queen Anne's Lace nearby. These all have tiny, umbrella-like flowers, which attract the parasitic wasps. Think of it as a palate-cleanser for the tiny wasps, who like to snack on a bit of nectar between those huge caterpillar meals.