26 September 2014

No parsley seeds for me

As I was walking around and looking at my various garden boxes ... I notice my two curled leaf parsley plants which were bolting nicely will not be giving me seeds.  The swallowtail caterpillars have found them, and hubby and I counted fifteen caterpillars on the two plants!  Hubby had to come out and see this.  I must admit, it is impressive in a flower-stripping way.
there are fifteen swallowtail caterpillars stripping my curled parsley bolts
close up of the biggest swallowtail caterpillars
 Hubby commented it is good for the caterpillars that we now know what they are ... meanwhile I was thinking how lucky they are I know the chickens don't like the taste of them.  I had wanted seeds from these parsley plants!  They have been healthy and contributing fresh parsley leaves to our meals for almost two years now. *Sigh.*

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just think of all the beautiful black swallowtail butterflies you'll have before long. :-)

dfr2010 said...

The adults are still fluttering around, along with other species of butterflies. I was really looking forward to getting seeds from those two parsley plants.