I was puttering in the garden today, harvesting some dill for use when we make our pickles, and noticed a rather large 'infestation' of caterpillars on the dill plants (I'm guessing a couple of hundred). They are all different sizes, although they pretty much all looked to be the same. I figured I'd do some research before I sprayed Bt & I'm glad I did, as they turned out to be Black Swallowtail caterpillars. From what I found thus far, they only eat plants in the parsnip family, so I decided I'd leave them alone, as we already have plenty of dill for our purposes and butterflies are great pollinators!!!
It's funny how every year something 'new' shows up at the ranch, sometimes it good & sometime its bad, however its always interesting to learn something new... Heck, we even got out first Red-Shoulder Hawk nest in a tree in our hay-trap (maybe 100' from our vegetable garden) & we've been out here 20 yrs!!!
