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| A beautiful "worm" |
It’s time to start looking for big green, black, and gold “worms” chomping away on the flowers and leaves of your dill and other herbs and vegetables.
No—your first thought of killing them doesn’t get thumbs-up here because the “worms” are more good than bad. They are bad in the sense they’ll eat some of your dill and parsley—and maybe some of the foliage of your carrots and celery too—but they are good because they are caterpillars or larvae of the black swallowtail butterfly (Papilio polyxenes). Parsley gives both the caterpillar and the adult their nicknames, “parsley worm” and “parsley swallowtail.”
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| Four larvae on one dill flowerhead |
And as the summer wears on, let some of your dill go to seed, so you’ll have volunteer plants next year to add both herbal essence and food for the black swallowtail caterpillars to your 2012 garden.
Take a second look at the “worm.”
Beautiful, isn’t it?
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| If you kill a "worm," you won't have one of these |
I only had one Dill plant, helped the little fellas to move on.
ReplyDeleteIf I had one dill plant, I might follow your example! But they are fascinating and beautiful creatures.
ReplyDeleteAnd as the summer wears on, let some of your dill go to seed, so you’ll have volunteer your dill or parsley, you’re helping complete the life cycle of the beautiful black swallowtail.
ReplyDeleteSaw both the worm and the butterfly in my garden today (Northeastern Ohio).
ReplyDeleteYes, this is the time to find the ugly beauties. I saw six Monarch caterpillars on our Butterfly Weed last week, but I haven't seen a "parsleyworm" because we had only one volunteer dill plant which the "derecho" storm two weeks ago flattened.
ReplyDelete