Kara's Garden

Today I was meandering through the garden, contemplating its destruction. I was thinking about what to pull out when, and feeling a little sad. Then I saw my flat leaf parsley plant! The day before yesterday, no lie, this guy was practically a bush. I checked my curly leaf parsley, same thing!
Get out the insecticide? NO WAY. These are Black Swallowtail caterpillars!I remember seeing one a week or so ago, floating around looking kind of droopy. She must have laid her eggs! Thank goodness I haven't had time to spray the garden (not that the parsley gets much spraying)! When these guys 'grow up,' they will look like this gorgeous butterfly (this picture is from www.butterflygardeningandconservation.com). I even pulled Carl up from the couch to check out our little chewers!

In Master Gardener training, I heard that these caterpillars can decimate a parsley plant in just a few days. I thought they were exaggerating, but they weren't! This plant was huge just a few days ago.

Black swallowtails like parsley and dill for their eggs. Other butterflies use different plants, for example the Monarch will only lay eggs on milkweed plants, because that is the only thing their caterpillars will eat. I had already removed my dill because it was running to seed- I should have kept it!

Butterflies and caterpillars are sort of like the 'canary in the coal mine' when it comes to ecological conservation. They are very sensitive to small environmental changes, so environmentalists use them as an example of what can happen because of global warming, pollution, and more. I sure hope I get to see all of these babies develop into pretty butterflies!