I had two green fennels and they were completely ignored. They also preferred my bronze.

We found our first swallowtail on the dill as it was winding up. I went and bought new dill plants because he didn't seem to like the fennel right next to it. The cat ate some fennel and tested the parsley a little before he went to change. Then we found two new cats on one of the new dill plants Looking forward to seeing them as butterflies down the road.

Hey JB, do the cats eat the carrots? I have let two overwinter each year for the last two and I can't find any cats on them, just a bazillion carrot sproutlings all over EVERYWHERE half in the paths between my raised beds. This spring I have a carrot so huge I had to stake it up, covered with little bees, but still no cats.

The first time I ever encountered swallowtail cats was the year I first grew Fennel to harvest the seeds. Found the cats eating the leaves one morning and went inside to look them up. Very excited and conflicted when I found out what they were. I didn't mind them eating the leaves, but when they got close to the blooms I had to put a stop to that. I think a little outside most boxes, and grew up with a mom who read Organic Gardening Magazine. So I took the tough outer covering from my garlic blooms and tied them around the base of the blooms... It was epic. The cats would munch their happy way up to them, then stick out their feeler/defense things, and recoil about three or four times before they changed direction and went back to happily munching leaves. Thumper's mom from Bambi would be proud. I had to replace them every morning, but also found out that chives work almost as well. I ended up with three plants that were all stems and bulbs and blossoms that turned to seed just fine, and some healthy fat cocoons on my trellis that hatched out the next spring into perfectly beautiful Swallowtails. And still got to make sausage.

That's a great story!

Yes, Kran, Black swallowtails will eat the green tops. No need for garlic to protect them

They eat the leaves, not the actual carrot itself. Hahaha

Thanks! My carrot blooms don't need any protection, Have thousands of baby carrot plants all over again this year. Landlord asked if I was going to weed-eat and seemed satisfied when I explained that those weren't weeds, they are carrots. They haven't spread into the lot with the empty building next to my yard, there are more competitive natives growing there. I am just so glad it hasn't been mowed and sprayed like previous years. More flowers for all my pollinators.

Those are carrot heads? They came up without planting them again this year? Very interesting.

I have a new observation. I think the caterpillars do better in the parsley because they are more hidden from predators. I keep getting lots of eggs and tiny cats on my fennel, but they keep disappearing. I think they are just too obvious on the fennel.

I don't do well at raising them in the cage I have. I will have to try again, because it kills me to see so many eaten by predators.

Kran, great story. I raised fennel and carrots for the cats in MD and always had lots. Here in MO I have not seen any yet.

One of the host plants for BST is Queen Annes Lace, Daucus carota, which are essentially wild carrots. The root doesn't look like a domestic carrot due to a lack of selective breding.