What is the black peppery stuff I find falling off my tomato plant?

It looks like black crumbs or pepper. Something has been munching on my sweet 100 plant but overall the plant is happy and producing. Are these black things the result of a bug eating my plant and excreting? What can it be? I find some of it on the plant leaves sometimes and just shake it off. Sometimes it's just all over the walkway next to the plant. When I inspect the plant, I only see a few spiders which I leave there, hoping it will eat the other bugs.|||hey---sounds like,,, tomato horn worm ,,,droppings, they are worms that eat the leaves, bigger the droppings---the bigger the worm----, they start out as little clusters of white eggs, on bottom of leaves,,when 1 st hatched they are bout size of pencil lead,,,can get up to 1 1/2 inches long,,and big as a pencil,,, you 'll have to look on bottom of leaves to find them,,, a good dusting of Sevin Dust 5 %,,,bout once a week will cure the problem,,,look on directions to make sure the kind you buy will control ---tomato horn worm---- hey when you find one ,,,you'll see why they are called horned,,,|||What it sounds like is called "early Blight" which is usually caused by water standing on the leaves. I am going to post a link to a trusted website that deals only with tomato's and though you kinda have to decide which area of the plant to look for, it really gives detailed photos of problematic things that commonly goes wrong and how to solve them.





As a avid gardener myself I recommend cutting the older %26amp; bigger "sucker leaves" off as they only drain the vine from needed nutrients needed for the fruit production and it also helps in minimizing possible problems. I learned it only takes just a very few leaves to produce better quality tomato's and less problems.





Heres's the link:|||It is snail poop..they are feeding on your leaves and leaving thier poop behind...Get a box of sluggo and treat the ground below the plants..the snails/slugs come out at night and feed is why you arents seeing them..go out about midnight tonight with a flashlight and you will see them...





http://www.biconet.com/crawlers/sluggo.h鈥?/a>





Here is a picture of thier feces





http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/100鈥?/a>