Papilo Polyxenes caterpillars
Channel: Stephanie Pyke
Date: 2013-07-24

These are my new garden buddies, eating away at the parsley we decided we didn't like to eat so much. Well, they certainly love it! I sowed single parsley around it a couple of days ago, I am not too worried about them defoliating my plant, the parsley is heat stressed because it has been 37-39°C for the last couple of weeks. The plant will push up new leaves, parsley is fairly hardy that way. I don't use pesticides on my plants, and they're fertilized with organic food. They were planted with a mixture of feather, bone, and blood meal, and they are regularly watered, and then once a week fed with north atlantic kelp and fish hydrolysate. I also tend to put egg shells and coffee grounds around all of my plants whenever I make coffee or egg stuff. This parsley was potted on May 26, 2013, and I caught mama swallowtail visiting on July 13, 2013, but she was probably there a lot more than my single observation. Thank you so much to whatsthatbug.com for pointing me in the right direction on how to care for these little creatures! The name for his little orange defense is osmeterium. I've just seen it spelled wrong as often as right, and I've never heard someone actually say the word out loud