Tomato Nightmares - What HASN'T attacked mine???

I have a feeling it's too late to really salvage my 200+ tomato plants, but maybe you all have some miracle organic advice. Here's what we're dealing with:

Horn Worms
Caterpillars (brown w/yellow stripes)
Tiny Worms (don't know what they are - they are at the stem area of the fruit)
Ants
Leaf Footed Beetles
Gophers (They have hewn off about a dozen plants at the base)
3 weeks of straight 100 degree temps and no rain
Curled or crispy leaves

What we've done:

Dipel shaken all over plants (worked for about 5 days to a week)
Neem oil on a few to see if it'd do anything - worked great on my peppers on leaf footers
Hard spray of water
Watering daily
Hand-picking worms/caterpillars
Noise making gopher repellers (seem to have no effect)

We have thick mulch of grass clippings to keep weeds down and moisture in. Lower leaves have all been removed, so nothing is touching the ground. They are staked to 6" wooden stakes.

I can get pics if you need them. I would say we are throwing away 1/2 to 2/3 of our crop (well, they chickens are eating it), and since this is our main source of income right now, I'm going crazy. I want to cry every time I go out there. SO much work, and it's not paying off at all.

Also, I've got okra that has done really well, but now is getting attacked by ants. We've tried Neem and also instant grits - this is a major cash crop for us, so I just can't lose these as well.

Advice, advice! I'm dyin' over here.

Eileen

Worms and caterpillars either spinosad or dipel (Bt)
Leaf footed bugs and stink bugs, those are harder to kill. A spray of pyrethrum or rotenone dust right on the bug will kill it. Routine scouting, squishing the eggs and adults helps.
Ants use spinosad bait. It works.
Don't have gophers, so can't help with that one other than to suggest getting a cat.

We have woodchucks and we caged the tomatoes with fencing that has a three x two inch grid. We group three tomato plants in a fence circle and use large fencing posts to hold the fence in place. The fencing takes the place of the tomato cages. when the tomatoes start to climb above that level then we add on top another cage of fencing with a 6 x 6 grid. On the other hand, we don't have 200 tomato plants to deal with.

Messina wildlife has a repellent for woodchucks that I have used in the past. It worked for us, has more of a minty smell, and last longer than the regular putrid sprays. You might look at what they have for golphers (call because some of the products cover the same animals but are lableled like they are different) and see if something like that might work for your application. http://www.messinawildlife.com/

This message was edited Aug 11, 2010 9:54 AM

Thanks, Susan, I'll look into that.

This week, I'm going to do a three-course attack. First, Neem the crap out of everything. Second, coat the ground with Diatomaceous Earth. Last, Dipel all over every plant.

We've recently seen a massive increase in the leaf-footed bugs. They went from a few to a swarm. Neem seems to work on them though, so I'm going to give that a shot.

Has anyone used a Miracle Gro style feeder to disburse Neem oil? With this many plants, my little hand sprayer is going to take WAY too long.

Be careful with neem in the hot sun, it can damage leaves. Neem is toxic to bees.

I haven't seen too many of our bees around the garden. We have a huge hive, but it's far enough away from the garden that it shouldn't be affected. I'm going do the Neem later at night when it's (ha!) cooler so the leaves don't burn. They're already curled - I'm not sure how much damage I could actually do.

How did neeming work? I've got leaf footed bugs galore here, and for the first time, their 2nd cousins, the stink bug. I'm neeming nightly, but still seeing the kritters because it's an endless fight with them proliferating in the empty (and overgrown) lots across the street....

Ah, so THAT's what those are! Stink bugs! Good to know. I've only gotten to use the neem on my pepper plants and the plants seem to be leaf-footed free. I'm working on cleaning up all of my tomatoes in the hope they will continue to produce now that it's not so bleedin' hot. The hornworms are on in full force. My MIL found six on one plant yesterday. I've fed no less than 60 to my chickens over the last week, and I've only gotten through less than 1/4 of my plants. Ugh.

I wonder, does anyone know how to get rid of pin worms? I have to toss 2/3 of my maters to the chickens because they've got these little worms that burrow in right at the stem. I'm hoping the neem or dipel will do them in, but any other suggestions would be great.