Home Pest Control and Tomato Plants

If you are planning on growing tomato plants in your garden, you will need to familiarize yourself with the different types of pests that may seek out your tomato plants to feed off of. You will need to take precautions to prevent pests from damaging your tomato plants.

• Tomato hornworms are a common pest that plagues tomato plants. These insects can often be at least three inches in length, once full grown. The hornworms begin very small and then grow very quickly in the end of their lifecycle, so you may not notice these at first, until grown to full size. You can pick these pests off by hand or you can use an insecticide to kill off horn worms as well.


• Tomato fruit worms are smaller than the hornworms, although they are a lot more damaging to your tomato plants. These small caterpillar-like insects come in many different colors such as green, brown and red. They look like caterpillars that have a spiny back. They will usually migrate towards tomato plants that are green and underdeveloped. You will need to use insecticides to treat your tomato plants for these pesky creatures.


• Aphids are tiny insects that prefer to suck the juice from garden plants such as tomatoes. Although they will not usually kill your tomato plants, they can significantly weaken the structure of your plants. You can decrease the production of aphids in your garden by encouraging ladybugs and other natural predators to these insects in your garden.


• If you have a problem with any of the pests that frequently feed off of tomato plants, you should purchase an insecticide from your local garden or home improvement store to control the pests. Your tomato plants will grow larger and yield more fruit without pests feeding off of them.