Saturday, September 5, 2009

fresh breathed garden friends.

A few days ago, I noticed my parsley was sort of… going away… one leaf at a time.  On further investigation, I noticed that there was a little caterpillar, and the next day 2 of them.  This was super exciting because the preying mantis that was on my raspberry bush had just vanished.  I decided to Google “black green yellow caterpillar” and found that to my excited amazement, it is the Black Swallowtail Butterfly.  OMG I HAVE BUTTERFLIES COMING! 

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I am so amazed by their appearance.  I live in a brick and concrete neighborhood, with not much around but a large park down the street.  The amazing thing though, the Swallowtail lays their eggs on members of the Queen Annes Lace family;  carrots, fennel, parsley, dill, celery etc.  It’s fascinating that this gorgeous butterfly found its way around allies and brick row homes to find my tiny pot of struggling parsley.  I cant wait for their chrysalides!!  I should get a net dome to put over them so that birds don’t eat them…

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Little green balls of caterpillar parsley poo!  gross…

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