Tag Archives: fennel

Black Swallowtail Butterfly Egg, 1st tomato & bell pepper, squash and corn

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We made a fennel bed Black Swallowtail Butterfly nursery. I planted parsley and carrots in it because they also like to use it for a nursery too. We put it out near the woods and hopefully far enough from our backporch that the caterpillars will go to the woods to chrysalis.
We’ve anxiously waited for the butterflies to use the fennel bed and we worried that they hadn’t yet.
However Friday I checked the bed and I’m happy to say that there are several Black Swallowtail Butterfly eggs scattered about on the fennel. ~happy dance~We harvested our first tomato and first bell pepper out of the garden. For us, it’s fun harvesting our veggies. We harvested a dozen yellow squash too.Our corn is standing strong and silking beautifully. Hopefully, we’ll have a nice harvest of peaches and cream corn this year.The rains have been a blessing, but I’m glad the forecast is clear for the next few days.

Here’s wishing you all a great rest of the weekend.

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WildLife Wednesday – Caterpillar Condo

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Yesterday evening I was de-beetling my roses when I found a swallowtail butterfly caterpillar on my yellow hybrid tea rose.
The caterpillar was charming on there. I considered leaving it there, but I need to treat my rose for a problem and I couldn’t leave the caterpillar there during the treatment. So, I moved it to one of my fennel plants in my small gnome-flowerbed. Earlier we had noticed there was a couple caterpillars missing from one of the fennels. We presumed the caterpillar was one of the missing ones from the fennel in the small flowerbed. We couldn’t figure out how the caterpillar ended up on the rose bush… until we saw how fast the little fellow is and how far it can travel in a short time.It wasn’t but a few minutes until I saw the caterpillar had left the fennel and ran up and across our wood fence. (sorry about the photo quality. The little guy was moving fast.)I had read that at a certain age these species of caterpillars roamed around before they go to the chrysalis stage. I thought this caterpillar was one step away from spinning silk, so my husband got a pear tree branch for it to climb on. I carefully picked up the caterpillar and put it on the limb. We hoped that it we would get to watch it spin silk and make it’s chrysalis. But it kept climbing out onto to the leaves for a long while and then it fell off onto the ground.I watched it the whole time and was worried it would be eaten by a bird. So I got a small twig and let it climb up on it. It had become my mission to save this caterpillar (and watch it through it’s stages.) I’ve read and saw photos of how folks raise butterflies indoors, it seemed like a good idea. I decided to build the caterpillar a condo and bring it inside. I have an old aquarium that has cracks in it, that I didn’t have the heart to throw away. I’m a hoarder always thinking there’s a craft I can use any old container for even one with cracks in it.

My husband liked the idea. He got a fresh small limb and trimmed the leaves off.  He put it in the aquarium. I put a glass ramekin with a bit of water so the fennel won’t die too quickly. We added the caterpillar and some fennel. My husband thought the caterpillar might get lonely, so we went to the herb bed and got another caterpillar along with the fennel limb it was on.  Now we have 2 caterpillars as sort of indoor pets. I enjoy watching them wonder around the twigs and fennel. Hopefully, they’ll survive and make butterflies in a couple weeks or so.

Have you ever raised butterflies indoors?

Wishing you all beautiful days of flowers and butterflies.

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Black Swallowtail Caterpillars, Sunset, Moonrise & Ice Cream

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I’ve always wanted to have black swallowtail caterpillars in my flower beds. They’re so bright and pretty and make beautiful butterflies.
My blogging buddy Patti has a flower bed and posts pretty photos of the black swallowtail caterpillars. I asked her about them. She told me to plant fennel for them.
The only fennel I could find is a bronze fennel. I bought 4 peat pots of them. I planted 2 in my herb bed and 2 in one of my small flower beds. The 2 in the herb bed are flourishing, but the 2 fennel plants in my flower bed are slow growing.

The fennel in my herb bed is where the caterpillars are. There’s oodles of the lovely critters munching in the fennel.
“Thank you so very much Patti! I’m glad I listened to you.”

Unfortunately, I didn’t plan the ones in the herb bed very well because I bet the birds who come to bath in our bird baths will eat up all the caterpillars. But the birds haven’t eaten them all so far, so maybe a few of the caterpillars will mature into butterflies.However, Maybe the fennel in my small flower bed by the porch will take a growth spurt and the butterflies will lay some eggs on them. The birds never are in that flower bed because my rain chain and dangly chain keeps them scared off.

Oh yes and also, I planted a small dill plant in the herb bed and was surprised to see that it has 2 black swallowtail caterpillars on it. I didn’t know the caterpillars would hatch and grow on dill. Cool!~*~
June 1 2017 had a glorious fiery sunset.
It was a beautiful sight to see.

~*~
June 2, 2017 was clear and the moon in it’s first quarter stood out clearly in the early-evening blue sky.~*~
Oh one more thing, we won the lottery! That’s right folks our ticket brought in a whopping $2.00.
We were selfish and blew the whole winnings on a couple of vanilla ice cream cones.
The ice cream was a rare fun treat and a tasty way to enjoy our lottery winnings.

Wishing you all joy and fun
and oodles of good fortune.

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