What to do when tomato fruitworms take over

Ifinally have started getting some tomatoes from my garden. Much to my dismay, I found worms coming out of a couple of the tomatoes. What is going on in my garden?

— Erica Peterson, Lincolnshire

It sounds like you have tomato fruitworms to contend with in your garden. I haven’t seen these pests in the tomatoes in my garden at home (our dachshunds eating ripening tomatoes have been a bigger issue for me). Tomato fruitworms are caterpillars that bore into tomatoes and other crops, which in turn causes damage and then leads the fruit to rot. This pest makes neat, round holes in the fruit, and its feeding in the fruit causes damage, leading to internal rot. The feces it leaves in the fruit are very unappetizing. The caterpillars can be green, brown, pink or even black, and generally make ent