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How do I stop grubs from attacking my tomatoes while they are growing on the vine?
You could try making a homemade spray - combination of water, garlic and dish soap and spray on the leaves of the plants.
www.ehow.com/
For my apple tree, I used combination of water and dish soap. But the article above recommended garlic.
I used to hand pick them off and dispose of them. It was time consuming, but I am anti chemical. One-year I used dawn in hot water and washed them off.
To keep them out of the garden you can take a pie tin and place cut cucumbers and place them on the tin. The smell will keep them out of the garden. Also you can take all your old eggshells and crush them and put them around the trees. I have even dug holes in the yard close to my plants and put in plastic glasses and put beer in them. They seem to love the smell and go inside and are killed. Other than this you should hand pick them off your plants.
Many thanks,
Wendy M. from Hervey Bay, Australia
I'll describe some solutions for both cracks and grubs/worms and leave it up to you to try to determine exactly what is going on.
Eventually it becomes rotted and hollow and collapses like a deflated balloon. Handpicking adult caterpillars and covering your plants with netting or floating row covers to prevent adult moths from laying eggs will help prevent infestations.
Ellen
If you are a smoker, that could be the reason the leaves of your tomatoe plants are yellow.
Even a little nicotine on the plants could harm them. Use gloves, or wash your hands well before handling the plants and don't smoke around them in the garden. I had real bad luck with tomatoes when I was smoking, and absolutely none after I quit.
There may be a little too much water if they are splitting, and the grubs can be getting in there, then. I also plant an onion bulb and a marigold with each tomato plant, which keeps lots of bugs away. I use "Seven" on my plants when bugs do find them. Perhaps there is the equivilant to that in Australia. I don't use much of anything if I can help it, and that is the least harmful to mammals. Hope this helps.
Once I heard that the ultimate act of faith is to plant a seed. Good luck and God bless.
It would take much, much more nicotine than the small residue left on a couple of fingers to affect a ripening tomato. My grandparents farmed all of their lives, both dipped snuff and they had the most beautiful garden you've ever seen, tomatoes included. It's far more likely that it's a combination of getting too dry then too wet, too much direct sun when the plants are young and tender, and/or poor soil conditions. Tomatoes love fertile soil.
When I worked for an organic farmer, he did not let his tobacco smoking workers near his tomatoes. I worked on transplanting hundreds of them since I did not smoke! So I beg to differ.
