Here’s a simple and organic defense against cut worms getting your tomatoes for those of you blessed with a long season and who will be replanting tomatoes again soon for a fall crop!
All you need is a little newspaper and a pair of scissors. Be sure the newspaper is just black and white print (colored ink has lead in it that can leach into your soil).
Simply wrap a strip of the paper around the stem of the plant so that is sits about 1 inch below and one inch above the soil level. We secured the ring of paper with a couple of staples.
The paper limits access to the stem of the plant so the worms can’t get in and munch down your newly planted seedlings.
Is it a perfect solution? Nope, we still lost one of our 10 plants to a cut worm. But the owner of our borrowed garden warned us that he had a cut worm problem and gave us this suggestion and over all it seems to be working!!
That is interesting to note. I use half of a toilet paper roll and cut it so it fits around the whole clump of dirt. Maybe the paper would slit down into the dirt easier closer to the plant. Have had no problems with cutworms doing this tho. Nancy