Caterpillars (8-5-07)

It's okay though, these ones are most likely Black Swallowtail Butterfly caterpillars. They like plants in the carrot family (carrots, dill, fennel, parsley). Had I known about the parsley and the fact that the butterflies and caterpillars would be here, I probably wouldn't have been so keen on eradicating the excess parsley from the garden. (both pictures unedited, and I used the telephoto lens on "macro" mode).

Caterpillar about ready to pupate (make its little chrysalises thing). (Backyard garden)

Smaller caterpillar. If you click on the picture to see the full sized image, you can just make out little 'horns' on the back. These go away as the caterpillar gets closer to pupating. (front yard garden--this parsley plants was one that I cut down to the ground and it started coming back).

Also, I found a praying mantis, but by the time I got inside to get the camera, it was gone.

I severely cut back the tomato plants--because of all the rain we've been getting, the tomatoes haven't been doing so well and the leaves all started turning yellow and looking rotten. The last couple of times I've pulled fruit off, it's had soft spots on it...almost like the fruit itself got too much water in it.

The cantaloupe plant also was getting too much water...it's a good thing it's supposed to be a drying trend now. The plant, though, has 2 cantaloupes and today I went out and fertilized some of the female flowers (I got that idea from this blog that Colin wrote...also, maybe I ought to try a ginormous pumpkin some year soon).

Oh right, because of all the rain, the rosemary plant finally gave up and died. I think I'm going to leave it in the ground though, just to see if it happens to come back next year.