August 28, 2025 - The Best Kind of Hornworm Is None At All

We harvested slicer tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, and sunflowers then packed up the deliveries and electric van for market. We are inundated by tomatoes and thus hornworms too, but the chickens happily snack on them.

Tomato Overload

In this season, tomatoes are everywhere. After the harvest of slicer tomatoes from the field and greenhouse today, we had 43 trays of tomatoes. Each tray holds around 16-20 good-size tomatoes, which at current market price for organic varieties of $3.00 per pound means that each tray is worth between $50.00 and $70.00. So if it all sells (which it likely won’t), we’ll make around $2500.00 in one of these bountiful weeks off determinate and (mostly) indeterminate tomatoes. If we have four weeks of this kind of hot mess, it’s very likely that it will put a significant dent in the cap-ex of the new greenhouse this year.

This week the weather was full sun, average 75 degrees fahrenheit, humid, and then yesterday there was a hailstorm. As a result in the field today, many tomatoes were already peak ripe if you picked them and ate them right there, but this is not useful for a four-market schedule including CSA pickups and ad-hoc sales. Vine ripened simply means spoiled in the kitchen if you’re not growing them in your own back yard.

We harvest them just about every day, alternating between slicers and cherry varieties, and still there is not enough time to get them all to market in a manner that leaves them ripe for a few days in a customer’s home, only more than enough. So today, Jamie’s direction was to pick only firm tomatoes with some good color on them. The one’s I had to leave were only heartbreaking to my glutinous, greedy sensibilities.

As I sit here eating dehydrated tomatoes from last week with more in the dehydrator and too many to make salsa, sandwiches, and canned versions of, I remember that a great CSA isn’t just about an over rotation on a few fantastic moments. When done by people who know what they’re doing, it’s a transparent balance across a portfolio of crops throughout the a 6 month season (in New England, despite hailstorms) that only a very dedicated few can produce.

Hornworms Are a Menace

About ten years ago when I was deeply invested in gardening, some hornworms invaded my space and overnight destroyed the 6 tomato plants I lovingly cared for since February. On that day I swore I’d never grow tomatoes again and cursed the hornworms with all the spit and vile and hatred I had ready to muster. Since then, I’ve relaxed my ‘no tomatoes’ policy but viscerally remember what they can do to summer hope and joy.

Despite the current tomato bounty, I will always despise these little monsters. They are a menace to tomatoes, eating leaves, branches, fruits, and each other when confrontation demands. The best thing I can say about them is that if they didn’t exist at all, I’d be happier for it. Of course, they exist in larger numbers when attracted by our efforts to create very specialized arenas for their favorite food. But neither hornworm nor human can resist the fatale attraction to the sweet, sweet taste of tomatoes.

Meanwhile in the sunflowers, the bees don’t damage the flowers or their human overlords while we work side-by-side to make our nut. They tirelessly pollinate the plants they visit and produce an abundance of honey. It really makes me wonder if humans are like hornworms and less like bees…some far more than others but species is as species does.

In short, IMO, the best kind of hornworm is none at all. We collected them in a bucket and I fed them to the chickens as quickly as I could. The carnage was…satisfying.