Garden update!!

I love fall. It’s my favorite season of the year. I love the crispness in the air. The changing colors of the leaves. The crunch of the leaves as I walk or run across them. The smells. The food. The holidays!

With that said, I decided to remove some of the vegetable plants that are done producing so I could consider what to plant next. During the process of removing my tomato plants, I noticed lots of caterpillars! One in particular was huge and we decided to name him George (no reason at all to give him that name other than he struck us as a George).

He was totally fine with both kids gently petting him and we decided to leave him be. I let the kids bring a smaller caterpillar inside to grow. That one they named Rosie. I didn’t choose the best day to do the yard work as it was over 100 and super smoky from the Napa fire. So after spending an hour or so on the tomato plants, pumpkins and watermelon I decided to tackle our butterfly garden.

Now, if you remember, I specifically chose flower and plants that would attract butterflies, bees and hummingbirds. We’ve seen plenty of bees and hummingbirds in our garden but not a lot of big butterflies. Well, as I removed one plant because it took over and was imposing on other plants, a beautiful butterfly flew past me and landed in my lantana. I felt I accomplished my mission of planting a butterfly garden and had a cold beer afterward.

Tonight while caring for a Rosie, I mentioned to my husband that I wish I was a caterpillar. I want to eat and eat. Get nice and plump only to turn into a beautiful butterfly!!! He looked at me and called me a unicorn.

On a side note we decided to track Rosie’s growth by measuring how much she grows and what we fed her. So far she loves my zinnias and has almost doubled in size. She also enjoys blueberries.

I wrote this post a few nights ago. I was quite excited about having caterpillars in my garden so I shared Rosie with my students. I had a student tell me that Rosie and George were horn worms - I corrected and said it was a caterpillar. The mom jumped on and told me what we thought was caterpillar is in fact a horn worm - known to eat and destroy tomato plants. Needless to say we released Rosie and will combat these buggers next season. Explains why I lost a whole tomato plant.