Gardening
Related: About this forumBlack swallowtails :-)
I found some of these guys eating my parsley and dill plants:
They will become these lovely creatures:
CrispyQ
(38,245 posts)Curmudgeoness
(18,219 posts)but I have a feeling that they didn't. I always get excited when a butterfly appreciates one of my plants, even if they do decimate them.
NCarolinawoman
(2,825 posts)Sometimes I bring them inside and raise them, to protect them from predators (mostly birds). Course I love the birds as well-- just don't want them to eat my future butterflies until they at least have a chance.
In_The_Wind
(72,300 posts)WCLinolVir
(951 posts)femmocrat
(28,394 posts)I only had the a couple of caterpillars that ate all the parsley and then disappeared. I looked around in the surrounding foliage for a chrysalis but didn't see anything. I hope the birds didn't get them. I enjoyed them while they were here, though, and the parsley grew back. I also found one in the dill weed.
WCLinolVir
(951 posts)And another smaller one who is dead in the dirt so I am going to take a small fish tank and set them in it. I am surprised by how fast they grow. Just yesterday they were
half their size. I bought another parsley plant for them.
Luckily it's organic and on clearance at the grocery store. The butterflies love my compost pile which I am not very good about turning regularly. The raccoon has been eating my old squash. I'm just surprised I have not seen the opossum there. I did come across a black woolly, also known as a giant leopard moth caterpillar.
alfie
(522 posts)but I do sympathize about your herbs.
ellenrr
(3,864 posts)altho glad to see them.
It seems very late for caterpillars, I expect them in the Spring.
?
(I'm in NJ)