The tiny Swallowtail caterpillars are not easy to spot at first, but once you know what you are looking for then you will begin to see them. Here the fist instar cats are on a potted dill plant. We just bought seeds and put them in a pot on the deck.

Parsley is a faster, less picky plant and grows much easier for me. When I collect the tiny caterpillars or eggs from the plants, I start feeding them the parsley to save the dill and fennel. This was a group I found one morning, I just pinch off the leaf that they are feeding on to avoid loosing the tiny cats.

Yep, they like parsley!

Nice picture Donna!

Don't forget the rue!!! They prefer rue over dill, parsely and fennel in my yard. Not sure why - must be a south Texas thing? Lots of homes have rue in their yards - there's an old wive's tale about planting rue, rosemary and some other herb I can never remember - to bring good luck. Maybe that's why I haven't won the lottery - I keep forgetting the other plant?!

Anyway...here's a couple of BSTs on rue - the caterpillars range from the black, white and orange look to the usual lime green, yellow and white I'm used to seeing. Not sure if they were different species of swallowtail - guess I'll never know since I didn't raise them in a cage and allowed them to wander off to pupate.

I hope my rue comes back, One year I had a huge plant and they ate it down to a stick LOL. I 've seen no signs of life on my rue yet. keeping my fingers crossed.

My rue came back but I also cheated today and just bought 13 gallon pots of rue to add to my yard. Now I need to hurry up and fix up a flower bed for the Black Swallowtails.

Am planning on creating separate small raised garden beds for different butterfly species. However, by the looks of all the rue I now have it looks like the Black Swallowtail plot will be bigger than I planned :o)

~ Cat

ps...I also purchased three dill in small 3 inch pots :o) That along with the rue and existing fennel are going to be a smorgasboard!!!

oh i'm jealous !!! My rue has not come back, I guess it's not going too

Went looking for some more Rue yesterday but didn't find any at Archies where I have bought it in the past. Still hoping my seeds that I scattered last year will germinate.

Rue doesn't grow well here in South Ga. and Bronze Fennel is so hard to find!
But I did get lucky today a local grower delivery 2 trays of parsley. And will be growing all the bronze fennel I want!!

I want patches & patches of Bronze Fennel. Last year I had 6 - 1 gallon containers that was load down with 42 BS cat's!! What a site to see!

Bronze fennel is really hard to find here too and mine died on me, so I'll have to buy some more this year also.

I had one scawney B Fennel left last year, but this year it has about five plants up about 14 inches tall! I have bunches of parsley too, but glad one of the fennel came back. I rescue the cats (raise in cages so parasites and varmin can't get at them), when I find them on the rue, dill and fennel I take them and switch them to parsley.
So great that you had so many cats Donna V. Good work, sounds like you are planning to have more in your garden this year.

Yep, still waiting on those BF to arrive!! Hoping by the first of May the plugs will be ready!