Another good reason for growing parsley...

I counted 16 caterpillers on the parsley and I'm sure there were more. Now I just have to identify them.

they are monarch and zebra swallowtails. We do have a number of milkweeds nearby, but they always eat the parsley.

They turn in to this:





They LOVE Parsley.
I killed one the first year we were here (Arkansas) thinking it was some kind of Hornworm.
I was sad to find out what they really were.
We now plant plenty of Parsley, and they are welcome to it, though I believe they ate their way out of a host plant this year.
I never observed a chrysalis on the plant after they stripped it of its leaves.

this morning. I am going to plant more parsley next year.



I've had plenty of hornworms this year--I HATE THOSE THINGS!!!111 There is nothing worse than green blood. I usually pick them off with kitchen tongs and drop them in a pail of water, then I put them on my driveway for the birds to eat. They don't last long. The wrens & mockers love them, and the dear little bluebirds never get a chance at one..

We are privileged to live in an area that has large populations of various butterflies, especially the Swallowtails.




Also HATE tomato hornworms.

Instead of picking them off, we generally just snip the small branch they are on, and toss the branch + worm to the chickens. They LOVE hornworms, and I take some sadistic pleasure in the enthusiastic way they tear them apart.

We also diligently clip off any neighboring branches that the worms have stripped of leaves. The nude branches don't do the plant any good, and it makes it easier to spot new hornworms by the appearance of newly stripped branches. It gets confusing in our old age to try and remember where we've caught hornworms if we don't snip off the branches they have already fed on.

Now, when we walk into the garden and see a stripped branch, we KNOW there is an active hornworm RIGHT THERE in THAT spot, and this is not a place where a worm was caught yesterday, or a place where somebody else has already caught the worm.

attach the Chrysalis somewhere else. Once I 'lost" a caterpillar. Was very sad. Sitting in my recliner chair I noticed the coffee mug I had put down while cleaning the aquarium, had a chrysalis attached to the underside of the handle. It eventually eclosed and was found flapping against a window, so I could take it out.

I'll get some parsley for next year. :)

I don't know if I have any visitors on them or not.