It’s my first year on new soil. I put out the plants in August in the heat. And then the tomato horn worms descended on my garden. After plucking a number of the creepy things and feeding them to my delighted chickens, I thought I had eliminated all of the worms. They are difficult to see, camouflaged as they are with a color nearly identical to tomato vines, but on every trip to the garden I waded among the plants and plucked horn worms.
This morning, when I was picking peas and other vegetables in preparation for the arrival of the remains of Hurricane Florence this evening, I saw more horn worms but these were covered with eggs laid by the parasitic Braconid wasp. 
I feel a little sorry for the caterpillar, covered as it is by the eggs that are nourishing themselves by removing nutrients they need for survival from it. Instead of eating my plants, the caterpillar looks sort of sickly and dismayed by its situation.
I will not feed him to the chickens. Instead, I’ll leave the eggs to complete their life cycle and make dozens more new wasps for next year. If you find tomato horn worms covered with these eggs in your garden, leave them alone. They will eat little to nothing else and will soon turn into more wasps to protect your garden for next year.
I hope these survive the hurricane. We are 100 miles inland, and we are expecting wind and rain. All day, the wind has been increasing and the clouds are becoming darker as the outer bands of the now tropical storm arrive. For more information about the Braconid wasp, visit this article.