Tomato Hornworms are BAD!

Well.... I went out to water my little patio garden and flowers tonight. My "garden" is nothing big or fancy, but I had 3 really nice tomato plants and 4 bell pepper plants, along with a yellow squash and cucumber plant. To my dismay I found 2 of my tomato and 2 of my bell pepper plants completely missing their leaves. I thought maybe a deer had snuck in during the night and ate up my plants...I was really bummed. Then as I started to water the surviving plants I noticed something moving on one of my "eaten" plants....What??!! I found a big huge green worm or caterpillar looking thing and it freaked me out!!   So I inspected my plants a little closer and found several if them! (Auhgggg and yikes!)   I came in and jumped on the laptop and googled it.  I found out that they are tomato hornworms...basically larva from a moth. They pretty much ruined half of my garden. I plucked off as many as I could see with some tongs and disposed of them. I'll check again tomorrow to see if I got them all.  I wanted to post this so hopefully you can check your own gardens and plants for these creepy crawlers!  Looking at my pics below you'll see that all the leaves are eaten away!!  Poor tomato plants.  I also took a pic of the worms next to my toe (no comments on my toes please!) to show you how big they are...at least 3 inches...Yucky!...it sends goose pimples all over me thinking about these hornworms on my plants.  Here's a link in iVillage Garden Web with more info on the tomato hornworms.  More Info