gyof

A day after taking the pictures of the caterpillars on the broccoli, we were outside and I spotted a white butterfly around the broccoli. A said, "Oh, that is a Cabbage White. But, why is it on our broccoli?" Well, I luckily had just watched a Good Eats episode on broccoli, and it turns out that broccoli is genetically indistinguishable from cabbage. And so, I told A.

We also got the old butterfly house from last year, and put some caterpillars in it. We know what they eat! I try to cut off the mostly eaten leaves for the pets. We'll see for sure what they turn into. :)

The first picture is the best, the rest are hear to try and convey the absolute difficulty of photographicing a flitting butterfly that won't hold still! And I deleted the same number of pictures again that were complete misses.

Picture 1. Cabbage White butterfly around broccoli.

Picture 2.

Picture 3.

Picture 4. Shows damage to broccoli too.

I've been trying to grow my own food, blogging about it here under the heading Grow Your Own Food, GYOF, and tweeting about it too under #gyof. I'm trying to learn more about growing food so that each year I get better and better at it.

Lately I've been noticing something has been eating my broccoli plants, making little holes in the leaves. Today, I was out in the garden (late September here in Chicagoland) and there were so many caterpillars on one leaf, I could not help but notice them. Then I started looking more closely. I ended up pulling and brushing off any critters I could find, after taking pictures! So, here are the pictures, If you know the names of these creatures and can help me learn about them, please add a comment (you'll have to log in or create an account), I'll appreciate the help.

I think there are caterpillars, little white bugs and maybe caterpillar poop, or eggs?!?

Picture 1. Lots of Caterpillars

Picture 2. Light green caterpillar and white insect.

Picture 3. Close up of white bug, and can see the  thin yellow stripe on the caterpillar.

Picture 4. Tons of what at first looked like dust on a leaf, might be lots of those white bugs.

Picture 5. What are these tiny slimy green balls, caterpillar eggs, poop, or ...?

You should be able to click on each picture to see a bigger picture, and then you can probably zoom in on that bigger picture.

Thanks! -Cathy

I've been planting some seeds in my backyard and eating any food that happens to grow for a few years now. I want to take it to the next level. I want to plan on eating certain things I grow. I want to learn form others doing the same thing, and laugh and rant with you too!

I'm Cathy Theys, I live in Oak Park, Illinois, with my darling husband, DH, and my three kids. In the summer of 2009 A is 7 years old, V is 5 and AR is 2. I'm pretty sure the kids think the garden is cool, and they even "help" and plant their own plants. We have a big lot in Oak Park, a double lot, but it is still a small yard; the house, garage and parking spaces sit on 50' by 150'; grass and garden make up what is left over. The front yard is being transformed from grass to flowers a little bit every year, and DH helped me get a proper space dug up and set aside for food this year that is coming to a close.

I'm ready to learn and start planning for next year and I hope you will join me. No experience necessary, I barely have any!

I've set up a couple yahoo groups, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gyof-chicagoland is for those in the Chicago, Oak Park, Forest Park, Berwyn, River Forest and other suburbs who say, "Yeah, I want to grow my own food." and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gyof-mods is a group for people who want to set up and moderate their own local GYOF, Grow Your Own Food, yahoo groups.

And, I've started using the #gyof tag on twitter: http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23gyof Save the #gyof search there, or follow me as I try and grow my own food, veggies and fruit, in my city garden: ctheys http://twitter.com/ctheys But you'll get my posts on non-gyof topics too if you follow me, so be careful. *grin*