Tomatoes are one of our favorite things to grow in spring; but they sure do come with their fair share of pests. If you know what you’re looking for ahead of time you can stop these pests in their tracks before they inflict too much damage. Early detection is the key to successful pest control. We’ve waited all winter for tomato season, don’t let these little destroyers take it away. Take a look at the top five pests that affect tomatoes and let’s go to battle. The tomato pest control options will be listed in order of least toxicity.
Tomatoes and Spider Mites
Spider mites are tiny, brownish-red pests that feed on the leaves of tomato plants, causing discoloration, wilting, and stunted growth. They are difficult to see with the naked eye but you can test for them if you start to notice a white, stippled discoloration forming on the top of your tomato leaves.
Take a white sheet of paper and hold it under the leaves of your plant. Gently thump the leaves and see if you can now see tiny brownish-red specks zooming around on the white paper. As infestations increase, leaves begin to lose all of their green color, fading into tan, and in later stages, spider mites can be identified by the fine webbing they leave behind. Don’t let them get to any of these stages if you can possibly help it. Observe and inspect your tomato plants and leaves daily; things change quick in the garden.
Control Spider mites by:
- Spraying them multiple times a week with a blast of water from the hose to displace and discourage them.
- Spraying with insecticidal soap.
- Alternately spraying with pyrethrin and spinosad at 14 day intervals as needed. (Try only spraying spinosad after the sun starts to go down so you avoid contact with pollinating bees.)
One other thing to note is that spider mites truly love hot, dry weather and plants that are stressed. Keep your tomato plants well fed and watered; a healthy plant will help with prevention of spider mites.
Tomatoes and Tomato Hornworms
Tomato Hornworms are large green caterpillars with white stripes on their sides and a horn-like protrusion on their rear end. These caterpillars defoliate tomato plants and cause damage to their fruit. Tomato Hornworms are also hard-to-see pests as they are pretty much the same color as the tomato leaves that they love to munch. You’ll have to really look for them under leaves, along stems, etc…
What you actually might see before you see the hornworm is little black pellets on top of your leaves which is frass (a.k.a. caterpillar poop). Or, even before that, you might see a hummingbird moth flittering around your tomatoes and this could be a sign that tomato hornworms will soon follow as they are the larvae of these moths.
Control by:
- Handpicking them from the plant
- Spraying with Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis)
Fun fact about tomato hornmworms, they are phosphorescent. If you have a black light, and go searching for them at night, they will glow purple!
Tomatoes and Leaf Footed Bugs
Leaf-footed bugs are pests with piercing mouthparts. They are known to feed on the fruit of tomato plants, causing yellow spots, discoloration, and sometimes even fruit drop. Inspect tomato plants often for eggs deposited in a strand on the undersides of leaves or in a row along stems. As nymphs, they are orangish-red with black spots. At this stage you will most likely see a cluster of these juvenile bugs. As adults, leaf-footed bugs have a distinct flattened appearance with leaf-like projections on their hind legs, and are brownish in color with white stripes on their wings.
It’s much easier to control leaf-footed bugs when they are eggs or nymphs, adults have a tough exoskeleton that makes them harder to control. Again, early detection is key.
Control by:
- Brushing them from your plants into a bowl of soapy water and they’ll meet their demise. (Newspaper on the soil below the plant can capture any bugs that evade the bowl.)
- Spraying with insecticidal soap, Neem oil, or pyrethrin spray.
- Vacuuming from plant with a small handheld device (weird, but works).
Keeping your garden debris free, both in and around, helps with prevention of leaf-footed bugs.
Tomatoes and Aphids
Aphids, oh we couldn’t forget about aphids. These tiny pests seem to show up on just about any plant, and tomatoes are not excluded. Yellow, green, or brownish-gray, aphids are sucking insects that can drain the vital juices out of leaves on your tomato plants, leaving them yellowed and weakened. You’ll find clusters of them congregating on the tips of new growth underneath leaves and along stems (they’re everywhere). Aphids also excrete a sticky substance (honeydew) that is very attractive to ants. If you aren’t careful, you may two pests in one that you have to deal with.
Aphids are soft bodied insects and while that makes them easier for pest controls to target, they also multiply so fast that multiple sprays will most likely be warranted. You just can’t get them all the first time.
Control by:
- Spraying a hard blast of water.
- Squishing with fingers (will most likely stain skin).
- Releasing beneficial insects (ladybugs and green lacewings) for organic control
- Spraying with insecticidal soap.
- Spraying with pyrethrin.
Tomatoes and Leafminers
Leafminers are insects that lay their eggs on the leaves of plants. Larvae hatch from these eggs, burrow into the leaves, and feed on the plant tissue. Leafminers cause visible tunnels or trails on the leaves, which can be white, brown, or discolored. This tunneling can cause significant damage to the leaves and affect the overall health of the plant. Other signs may include leaf curling or deformation, reduced plant growth, and decreased fruit production.
Control by:
- Spraying with Neem Oil (only spray in the cooler early morning or late evening hours to avoid burning plants)
- Spraying with Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis)
Try preventing leafminers by placing yellow sticky traps around tomato plants; adults are attracted to them.
Don’t be discouraged, just because we listed these pests doesn’t mean that you will have an issue with all of them. We just wanted you to know what to look out for and it’s a reminder to be diligent about checking on your tomatoes and all your plants this spring. Early detection is key; we can’t stress that enough!
Hello my name is crystal and I have a question how do I kno what type of tomatoes I’m growing I I got them from my local grocery store On the package all they said were delicious tomatoes they’re starting to Bloom now But I don’t know what type of tomatoes I am looking online and doing my research but I don’t know whether to keep them inside or Outside
Hi Crystal,
It would be difficult to know what type of tomato without the label. You may be able to distinguish whether you have an indeterminate or determinate type by when the plant fruits. If you get all your fruit at once, it’s a determinate, if your plant puts out a little bit of fruit at a time, it’s determinate, but you won’t know that until the plant actually develops tomatoes, and you’ll have to wait to see if more come. Sorry. It’s super important to remember to keep the name at planting time because most tomato plants look alike.
ALL tomatoes need as much sunshine as possible, so should be grown outside in full sun.
There is a variety called “Delicious Tomato” so perhaps that is the name since that’s what you can remember. You can look up more about this tomato and just wait and see if your tomatoes fit this description.
I have tiny small white spots on my tomato plants they look like eggs of some kind what do I do?
Without seeing a picture, it’s difficult to know what type of eggs you have or if the tiny white dots are in fact eggs at all. Are these on the top of the leaves or undersides? Try a hard blast of water first to see if you can dislodge and displace them. You can also try using a cotton swab dipped isopropyl alcohol and wipe them with that. (just make sure you only do the alcohol wipe in the morning or late evening hours when it is not hot out.
I think I have the same issue on my cherry tomato plant as Rebecca Morley. I hadn’t noticed them till today. Most of them were on the top of the leaves and a few on the stalk and stems. There weren’t very many. I just removed and squished them this time. Is there any way to prevent more from showing up? Yes, they look like tiny eggs, no body parts. about the size of the head of a straight pin.
It might be the eggs of a hornworm moth. Hard to prevent, unless you use row coverings, but that doesn’t stop overwintering hornworms from emerging from the soil again next time. You can try tilling the garden soil after the gardening season and again before the next one stops. This may disrupt and displace the overwintering larvae in the soil. You can also try using a thick layer of mulch to suppress them from emerging, and try crop rotation next time which is planting in a different spot every 3 years. You did right by squishing them. If they pupate, try an insecticidal soap first to rid yourself of the small caterpillars, or Bt (bacillus thuringiensis). Make sure to spray the entire plant, undersides of leaves, etc…. Spray in the early morning or late evening hours to prevent plant from burning in the summer sun.
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I have a strawberry plant, now indoors with black edges on leaves and a little on stem. Very small flying insects around?
Most likely this is a fungal issue due to overwatering or lack of drainage in the pot. Ease up on watering and feel soil to a depth of 2 inches to make sure soil is dry before watering. The small insects are most likely fungus gnats. You can do a soil drench using mosquito bits to kill the eggs in combination with using yellow sticky traps to kill the adults. You have to disrupt the complete lifecycle. Here is a video on fungus gnat control and some other options to try. Controlling and Preventing Fungus Gnats
What is the insecticidal spray??
Safer® Brand Insect Killing Soap is one of the most popular brands of insecticidal soap we carry.
Should I wait for the pest to come before using the insecticide or I spray to avoid them from coming and if the later is the case how often should I spray?
2. Is there a general insecticide that can deal with all the above mentioned pest?
Personally I am not a big fan of spraying when there is not a problem, especially at this time of year when the pollinator migration is in effect. Insecticidal soap or pyrethrin would target the “sucking bugs” noted in the article, but you would need Bt for the “chewers”. Fall generally brings less pests to the garden with its cooler weather, but my advice is to be hyper vigilant about checking for problems daily. You can get away with a hard blast of water to the pests when you catch them early. Usually a follow up application of sprays is advised at about 14 days, BUT you ALWAYS need to read the label of the pesticide and follow those instructions first. Hope this helps.
I just planted tomato plants. Two days later something has eaten most of the limbs – looks like someone cut them. Can you help with this?
Sounds most likely that a cutworm or tomato hornworm got to them. You might want to try some fine netting at planting time next time around to try to prevent the hummingbird moths that lay them from getting to them. If not, you have to be hypervigilant about checking your plants daily for signs of the caterpillars as they can be quite hard to spot because they blend in easily with the foliage. Spraying the caterpillars with Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) is a good control.
I just moved to Florida from New Jersey. I planted tomato plants , they have all been eaten from the top stem only ! No leaves.
What could be eating them?
This could be a result of tomato hornworms or some other caterpillar, or rabbits if your garden isn’t fenced in. Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) can be used to control caterpillars, but for rabbits you will need to figure out how to keep them from accessing your garden (fencing, netting along fencing, etc…)
I had tomatoes growing on my tomatoes plants. I was watering them and noticed that something had eaten the tomatoes and only left the top part of the tomatoes on the vine. How do I save them
Hi Verdell,
Are your tomatoes staked and growing upright? Or are they sprawling on the ground? On the ground I would suspect pillbugs (you can get Sluggo and use as a bait), if they are staked, I might suspect birds pecking at the red fruits. You would need to use some kind of netting and stakes, and try to create a barrier from the stakes with netting and the plant, to keep the birds from getting through netting.
Something is eating my tomatoe leaves. But I see no bugs!
Hornworms are really good at hiding. They are the same color as foliage. Do you see any black balls of caterpillar frass? That’s a telltale sign. Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) sprayed over entire plant, especially under leaves can target hornworms. Make sure you only spray in early morning and late evening so you don’t burn plants in the heat of the summer sun.
Do you live in an area where rabbits or deer have access? Those could be culprits as well.
My tomatos have small black worms that eat leaves and the fruit. What are they and bet treatment advise please
There a multitude of types of caterpillars or worms that tend to target tomato plants. The best product to control is Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis). Follow the label for application instructions.
I had several blooms and 2 small fruits on my plants. The blooms are dead now and just above each of them the stem is bent or broken. I saw what I think was a small elongated green insect. I really couldn’t tell. Do you know what this might be?
Hi Barbara,
It’s possible that you may have a juvenile tomato hornworm on your plant. When they are young, they can really blend in with the veins of the foliage on your tomato plants. I can’t be positive without seeing it, but they can cut off the stems where it looks like it is broken. Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis is a good spray to fight tomato hornworms, but you must be sure to spray the entire plant, especially on the undersides of leaves. If you live here in San Antonio, you MUST be careful to only spray products in the later evening hours when the sun isn’t beating down and when it is a little cooler, so you don’t burn your plant.
Keep in mind, that blossoms on tomato plants will drop here during summer purely because of the heat and many tomatoes won’t produce fruit when it gets in the high 90’s and triple digits. So just keep that in mind if you are hoping for a big tomato crop, and maybe think about it you really need to spray. You can also pluck them off if you can find them. Hopefully you got to enjoy some tomatoes already. (Fall planting is around the corner.)