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RE: Garden Update #1 6/30/17
I do actually. And I generally let them eat on my parsley as much as they want to as well. I knew there was a chance I would have them in the garden again this year so I planted extras of the plants I knew they tend to end up in, like carrots and parsley. I expect the carrots to recover rather quickly since they were fairly well established by the time the caterpillars showed up.
My carrots were infested with them so bad one year they ate practically all the tops to the stems before I even noticed them.
Oh no. I've never had them do enough damage to actually affect my harvest. Like even if they decimate the carrot tops over the weekend, the carrots are already ready to be harvested at any time, so it's not really an issue.
Yes that's true if they are mature carrots but it will affect your harvest if the carrots are still young. In any event, now that I know what they are I don't kill them. I just relocate them lol.
I had no clue what they were the first time they showed up. Had the hardest time trying to identify them until they got bigger. I actually started my carrots in cold frames back in April. And I had a container full of parsley grown in the greenhouse that I set out as soon as the weather allowed. I was actually trying to entice them back to the garden again lol They seem to prefer the carrots to the parsley. Only had one or two in the parsley this time, and I think something actually got them.
I never saw them in my gardens until maybe 5 years ago and I've been gardening for over 35 years. Now that they discovered my garden they seem to be around every year.
Your garden is probably helping to sustain a local population. If it's too late in the year when they form their chrysalis, they'll actually overwinter that way and emerge in the spring. You probably have some of the later generations overwintering nearby each year and then finding your garden shortly after emerging in the spring.