A Year of Gratitude – June 19, 2024

I found a reason for gratitude in the kitchen garden this morning. I almost missed it. I was doing a bit of weeding. It’s not a chore that I enjoy, but it helps to keep our garden healthy and productive, so I do it anyway.

So, I was weeding each bed, pulling weeds while trying to protect the plants that will produce food for our family table. If you’ve ever weeded a garden bed early in the season, you know how tricky a process that can be. Weeds and small plants often look alike. You have to be discerning about which leaves you pull out of the ground and which you allow to stay so that they can grow.

When I came to the corner of the bed with my dill plant in it, I noticed a few tiny little black spots. They were so small that they were difficult to focus on, especially with bright sunshine.

Once I really stopped to look at them, I realized that they were tiny black swallowtail caterpillars. They are so tiny, seemingly too small to survive. Yet here they were right in front of me.

It’s not uncommon for these caterpillars to appear on dill plants. Their favorite plants are in the carrot family. They love plants in the Apiaceae family like carrot, dill, and parsley.

It was remarkable to find them at this early stage in our garden. I know that they have been in our gardens at this size before because we have discovered them further on in their development. I have never noticed them when they are this tiny.

I found myself thinking of my morning spent determining which green plants were weeds and which were sprouts from seeds I have planted. Then I found these little beings who are welcome guests in our garden. Yes, they are eating my dill, but they will hopefully grow to become beautiful black swallowtail butterflies that will be wonderful pollinators that help our garden to flourish.

The garden has so much to teach us. In fact, it teaches me something nearly every day. Today, it reinforced that the difference between a weed and a useful plant is minimal, that what is beneficial to the garden might be disguised as something that could be considered a pest. The real wisdom comes from knowing the difference.

With any luck, we will have beautiful butterflies to enjoy from these tiny caterpillars. I have been watching the yellow swallowtails flit about in our flower gardens already this year. It feels good to know that our garden is a place that feels like home to them in the way that our old farmhouse feels like home to me.

This post is part of our A Year of Gratitude Series. You can find the introduction, inspiration, and entire year’s gratitude’s posts here.