Spent a good part of Sunday afternoon weeding the flower beds at my church. And while out there I meet this little guy! :)
I kept noticing these striped caterpillars - like the one above but much smaller, and I knew that they looked kinda like Monarch butterfly caterpillars but they where tiny. They were consistently on these awful viny weeds and I thought that Monarchs only ate milkweed and with no milkweed in sight I just kept picking them off so they could live and crawl off somewhere else and not be mashed and smothered in my weed pile.
On the final garden bed, lo and behold there was milkweed and with caterpillars (meet little guy in pic above) on it! So, I dug some up and took it home to plant in my backyard, caterpillars and all! :) Now, I just need to explain to my hubby why I need to go out and find more milkweed to plant.
After some research I learned that I was supposed to take the tiny plants because milkweed doesn't like to be transplanted but smaller plants tend to handle it better and I am sure I damaged the taproot on this one. So, now to be able to supply my two new pets with ample food (and to encourage more in the future) I am going to have to go out and find some baby milkweed plants (pretty sure we have some growing in the vacant field/lot next to our community).
So if you see me and a shovel out in the field here soon, don't be surprised! :)
But back to the title of my post, yes, there is now milkweed growing on my backyard. :)
3 comments:
I never knew that was what they ate,I will have to try and find me some too..I love the butterflies..so milkweed is a definate..take care..
Yup, milkweed is pretty much all that monarch caterpillars eat!
http://www.monarch-butterfly.com/what-do-monarchs-eat.html
Wow, you are growing so many things, Stacy! You need to tell Matt to get you a bigger backyard! I am impressed. We have a large field behind our houses and my neighbor Jill is growing a garden back in there, and a pumpkin patch. It's pretty neat. You and Jill would get along well!
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