I say this very hesitantly, knowing that their very lives are now in my precarious hands. Historical evidence tells them to be afraid. Be very afraid. And yet. I keep them confined, imprisoned even. Without any surety of my ability to keep them alive.
Who or what are we talking about? The children?!? Get real people. Caterpillars. Hungry, green velvety caterpillars that have made it their life's goal to eat all of the greenery off of our radish plants. Now, I don't like radishes. Not at all. But I do see the value in letting the kids grow them and maybe even try a bite. Maybe.
Suddenly I'm feeling inspired. Feel free to join in. In fact, I insist.
Plant a radish.
Get a radish.
Never any doubt.
That's why I love vegetables;
You know what you're about!
Plant a turnip.
Get a turnip.
Maybe you'll get two.
That's why I love vegetables;
You know that they'll come through!
(Okay, I'll stop now. Credit given to The Fantasticks)
The fact remains, musical, desirably edible, or not, that radishes cannot grow without photosynthesizing and they cannot photosynthesize without leaves and the caterpillars are trying to make leafless-nonphotosynthesizing, nongrowing, nonyummy (they were actually that anyway) stripped down vegetables out of them.
So our entire family went on a caterpillar hunting mission and captured upwards of 50 of the persistent and very hungry little dudes. (On a total of about 20 little radish plants. Impressive!) We packed them into our bug box (Thanks, Leslie!) and tossed some radishes in on top of them. And shut the top. Carefully. (I had already dropped it once and we had to make some "rearrests.")
The unpopular decision was made to have the caterpillars bunk outdoors. After the previous escape of Erika, I was taking no chances. We checked on our prisoners a few hours later and they had stripped the radish leaves bare and were indeed escaping from the box. I resolved to stand firm on the outdoorsedness of the inmates and sent Parker for more radish tops.
A web search indicated that these were Imported Cabbageworms and they would indeed form a chrysalis and turn into black and white butterflies. So they now had some value (in my eyes, they always had value in the kids' eyes :) and we will try to keep them out of the garden and in the bug box. And alive.
Now if they would only chrysalize (maybe it's a word) quickly and stop eating!
I will leave you with this...(credit still given to The Fantasticks)
Plant a carrot,
Get a carrot,
Not a Brussels sprout.
That's why I love vegetables.
You know what you're about!
Life is merry,
If it's very
Vegetarian!
A man who plants a garden
Is a very happy man!