Green Caterpillars on Chilli Plants

[MarkPelican]

My first tomato of the year was hollowed out by these little pests

[Scarlet]

Ive had a bit of trouble with them inside my chillies!

[cuffbertt]

I'd use the good old finger and thumb method and squash them to a level that you feel is the right number to allow a few to live without killing your plants.

Thanks burnie, that's what I've been doing so far. There seems to be so many and they're quite tricky to spot, so I'm sure that some will survive lol. It rained quite a lot last night so hopefully some of them got knocked from their leaves!

Finger and thumb (perhaps with a glove to keep your hands clean). However, if you don't want to kill them, remove them to the compost heap.

Be aware that if, like me, you grow tomatoes in the same greenhouse, the tomato moth caterpillar will migrate to your tomatoes and have a good feast.

This is what one was doing on my tomatoes a few years ago.

https://www.dropbox.com/preview/Publ...?role=personal

That's a good idea, I might use a little paintbrush and sweep them into a small pot. I don't have a greenhouse or any tomatoes, the plants are just in pots on the decking at the moment.

If you don't want to squish them, put them in the brown bin (or whichever your garden waste bin is!)

I have an entire wildlife ecosystem living in my brown bin - then it gets replenished every 2 weeks

Haha, we don't have a garden waste bin but I'm sure they can go into the regular bin along with all the slugs that I catch trying to eat my butternut squash and raddishes

Ive had a bit of trouble with them inside my chillies!

Wow, that's not good! I don't think I've seen any on my chillies yet luckily but I'll double check later