I found this giant moth in my garden a couple of days ago. He was the biggest moth I’ve ever seen, and he was butt ugly…I’m sorry…but he was! He had to have been four inches long, wings tucked beside the body. He’s history.
And yesterday, I found two of these guys in my garden:
But only one of them was doing any damage. The other one was being eaten alive by two wasps! Did you know wasps actually EAT these worms? I knew wasps would kill them, but I did not know wasps were “carnivores.”
Of course, while his buddy was being eaten alive, the other was happily munching along. I had to leave quickly for an appointment. I came back two hours later, and all I found was one partially-eaten carcass. Way to go, wasps!
This morning, I did an early “hornworm” check and found one. That guy is also history. I will keep a close eye out, as I’ve learned they can destroy my tiny gardens in record time.
Excellent technical report and should be quite helpful for some people. I haven’t seen any for a number of years now but when I was a kid and pesticides were not widely used by the farmers like now, we used to pick them off the plants and drop them in a mason jar. When evening came we would feed them to the chickens.
flutterby, great article. Have seen these moths this year where I live but just a few and they didn’t stay long. The Tomato Horn Worm we had problems with a last year. They really are UGLY and eat an amazing amount of leaves and fruit very quickly. So far this year we haven’t had any. Thank goodness. What we did to get rid of them was to pluck them off the plant and mash them. Gross I know but it worked had to watch the garden for several weeks though because they keep showing up. Thank You again for a wonderful article.
I’m not particularly squeamish but those things are just disgusting and kinda get to me. When we had them I would take my pruning shearers and snip them in half. ughhh …
Give me slugs (in the Northwest they are 3 inches long), pine beetle larva, centipedes, giant grasshoppers that spit on you, even leaches over those things. I throw a lot of bugs in the ponds for the fish.
We watched a swarm of wasps eat a mouse one time.
So absolutely informative! I now have a very nice welcome mat out for those few wasps that I see roaming through my garden. Now I know they’re not after me or my veggies in the garden…they’re after the enemies of my garden! Thank you. I’ve never found any of these but have been on the alert. Now it seems I have an ally…LOL Wifey
My chickens love them. The hard part is getting them off the plant without them squirting green juice on you.