The Tomato Hornworm Strikes Again!!!

I did pretty good this year considering it's the end of June and I've only now encountered my first tomato hornworm. After reading about it in a Lowe's Creative Ideas magazine last year, I diligently planted marigolds (btw French marigolds are the most pungent, therefore best for repelling hornworms) around my tomato bushes to keep the hornworms at bay. So far so good. But one of my potted bell peppers was not so lucky.

Just yesterday I picked robust bell peppers from the same bush and didn't notice anything amiss. 24-hours later I check it out and the entire top portion of the plant lost its leaves. Upon closer inspection, I found an enormous mature hornworm sucking away at a remaining unripe bell pepper. This thing was so huge I was able to notice its white sucker feet which left their imprint on my poor bell pepper. Gross. Hope it enjoyed its last meal.

There he is...dead center.

So where did it come from? I don't know. Everything else looks fine but apparently looks can be decieving. Need to break out the BT and Neem oil pronto! In the meantime, guess I'll be planting marigolds with the bell peppers too. Think Lowe's will pay me for that tip?