# Tomatillo Plant Grubs
Tomatillos are solanaceous plants native to Mexico and Guatemala. They're used in many recipes and essential to the making of salsa verde. Harder to cultivate than many vegetables, these plants have not been bred to resist pests in the United States to the extent many other common vegetables have.
One pest in particular, the Colorado potato beetle, is especially prevalent on tomatillos and especially hard to get rid of.
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Colorado Potato Beetle
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This beetle is a common pest to potatoes and solanaceous plants in both its larval and mature phases. The beetle eggs are a bright yellow orange, usually found on the underside of plant leaves. In their larval, or grub stage, they are slimy and brown, almost slug-like though sometimes with a bit more orange color. They are approxomately 1/8 inch long and don't tend to move much. Adult Colorado Potato beetles are an orange brown.
On Tomatillos
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On tomatillos, the beetle can live out its entire life cycle without leaving a plant. Adult beetles lay 400 to 500 eggs in clusters on the bottom of the plant's leaves, and once hatched, the larvae remain on the underside of the leaf, voraciously eating in groups, usually not venturing far from their hatching spot. Adult beetles will continue to eat a tomatillo plant, so if you have a plant with these larvae on them it's best to remove them as soon as possible.
Removal
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Colorado Potato Beetles are very adaptive to insecticides and therefore hard to kill, in grub and adult form. The most effective way to get rid of them is to actively remove and destroy, or squish, the eggs and grubs by hand before they enter their adult form, when they will be more mobile.
If you do not have the time to remove the grubs individually, since this is a plant that will presumably be eaten by you instead of the grubs in the future, an organic insecticide is recommended. The Colorado Potato Beetle is very resilient against pesticides, but diatomaceous earth powdered over the plant or neem oil, if applied diligently, should help rid the grubs from your leaves. If you'd rather use an inorganic pesticide, rotenone has been proven to show results against this beetle.
Other Pests
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The tomatillo does have other common pests, including aphids, slugs, leaf rollers, bean beetles, and most commonly, cucumber beetles. However, none of these pests commonly attack the tomatillos leaves while in larval, or grub form. Still, they can be removed by applying the same methods used to rid your plant of Colorado Potato Beetle.
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