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| Molt This caterpillar had just recently molted -- you can still see the darker skin down lower on the parsley stem.
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| Caterpillar & Garden UpdateThe caterpillars keep growing -- there are probably five or six in the parsley right now. This one appears to be the smallest:
Here's a mid-sized one:
And this one recently molted into the tiger stripes that they get before they become green:
In the main garden, squash plants are thriving:
As are the cucumbers:
 The cherry tomatoes aren't ripening yet, but the first flush of them is looking good:
It's almost time to harvest the beets and we harvested a bunch of garlic today -- it was on the small side, so next year I'll get it in the ground a little earlier, but it's tasty and plentiful. We also picked carrots this week (Little Finger variety, which produces small carrots that are great for snacking) and pulled up the lettuce, which was bolting. So later in the week, we'll put in green beans where the lettuce was and put in a hill of pumpkins and maybe another hill or two of squash and melons to replace the garlic and beets.
Up by the road, we are planting a small flower garden -- last year, I got seeds for some native NC perennials from the botanical garden nearby and planted them in long windowbox planters. They didn't really take off in that first year, but then perennials often don't. THIS year, however, we have a riot of black-eyed susans. Here's one:
And here's a closeup of the critter on the petal at 10:00:
You know I can't resist the bug shots!
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| In the garden...I finally planted the tomatoes this weekend! I put in Sungold cherry tomatoes, another orange/yellow cherry tomato variety, Cherokee Purples, Brandywines, a small orange slicing tomato, and Pink Girls this year. I also planted:
a hill of zucchini
a hill of yellow crookneck squash
a hill of baby watermelons
a short row of slicing cucumbers
Asian yard-long beans on a garden tipi-style trellis
basil
sunflowers
When the carrots, garlic, and beets are done in the spring garden, I'll plant some more summery stuff (hot peppers, Italian frying sweet peppers, and okra, plus maybe some more squash). And when we harvest the remaining lettuce (this week) I'll plant some bush beans.
I couldn't find the caterpillars yesterday, but we had just had a big thunderstorm the night before (which knocked out our power for 24 hours) and they may have been seeking shelter deeper in the pot of parsley. I'll try to get some more pics when things dry out (it's raining again today), assuming I can find them!
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