BTW, this was the worm on the Roma...

Jim, if it helps, I've had an ongoing infestation of the darned things. I picked off 20+, gave them to the chickens. Next day, 20+ more. Then my grandson helped me, we found 70+ and I now owe him somewhere around $10, I offered him 25 cents a worm before I knew how many I had, LOL. When I got to somewhere over 100 and counting, I got some powder and sprinkled, pyrethrin, I think. Some extract of chrysanthemum. With that many, I didn't have time to order predators!

I've never, ever, ever found more than 3 or 4 per year, and I only have 60 tomato plants, so I had more worms than plants.

The only luck I've had finding them was looking for the frass/droppings, or tomatoes without leaves. They are often on the underside of stems, so I pick up the branches and look underneath, but they are hard to spot, their camouflage is amazing. I tried letting the chickens in, but they ate the rest of the garden and didn't seem to be interested in finding the worms at all. (sigh)

Annie

With any caterpillar, use BT spray. As soon as I would have seen something like you are describing, I would have sprayed it. I like it because it is not a poison of any kind, and harms nothing but caterpillars that choose to eat my plants. It brings me great pleasure to see they have stopped feeding and crystallized. Pyrethrin may be a natural product, but it is still quite toxic - and it can even affect you. The reason I will use BT is that even the baby, very tiny, hornworms will die when they eat any of my plants.

I didn't need the sprays it seems as I bout 15k trichogramma wasps and have not seen any signs of the little buggers in over a week thankfully. I really swear by the beneficial insects. I did the same in the spring when I saw a cabbage worm. Ended up with a minscule amount of damage on just one head..

I'm going to get the BT anyway so I have it. Appreciate the tips!!