Sunday, June 15, 2014

Monarch Caterpillar

I wrote a blog post about the Monarch butterfly recently. I ordered 4000 seeds, I kept them in the fridge for thirty days in ground quartz and water, planted 2500, in four different gardens. Not a one sprouted. But the other 1500 in the fridge started sprouting when I took the container out.



So I weeded after a day of good rain, and a new friend and I are going set the seed. Other milkweed seed sprouted, from previous summers. This afternoon, weeding, I found a monarch caterpillar. I've never seen one here. I dare not touch it, these fingers are not so soft. It has been eating this young, flattened common milkweed. There is a budding forest behind it, behind my clementine. I've only seen maybe three monarch butterfly here this season.


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6 comments:

  1. MartinJune 16, 2014 at 10:23 AM

    I was able to obtain some milkweed starts and planted them out at random in a vacant (unused) field near where I live. We've had some early heat combined with less-than-usual rainfall here, however, so only a few have survived. Hopefully, they will live to produce seed for next season

    Haven't seen any Monarchs yet this year....

    ReplyDelete
  2. William Hunter DuncanJune 17, 2014 at 11:09 AM

    I saw two monarch caterpillar in my garden!

    WHD

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownJune 19, 2014 at 6:00 PM

    I'm doing my part for the monarchs... Hopefully they won't become like the passenger pigeons... In 1866, a billion-strong flock of passenger pigeons, 300 miles long and one mile wide, darkened the skies of Ontario for 14 hours as they flew overhead.

    But less 50 years later, these impressive creatures, once abundant in North America, became extinct as a result of cutting down forests and hunting by humans. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2662662/Could-passenger-pigeon-raised-DEAD-Scientists-spend-millions-revive-extinct-bird-using-centuries-old-DNA.html

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownJune 26, 2014 at 1:48 PM

    I saw one more at the stead last week. But I also saw a big fox and a wild turkey. It continues to be much greener than the past few years. I credit the imported good energy of my rainmakers.

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousDecember 25, 2014 at 11:23 AM

    Wonder if we can raise them from worms to be more? I used to bring in lady bugs to eat my garden bugs.

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousDecember 25, 2014 at 11:25 AM

    Wonder if we can raise them from worms to be more? I used to bring in lady bugs to eat my garden bugs.

    ReplyDelete

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