tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38496951261763307912011-04-21T16:38:49.119-05:00Gardening is one of the most popular hobbies throughout the world. Gardening changes the way you feel and how you perceive your surrounding environment. Gardening gives you the ability to enhance your environment, and that is the number one reason most people begin gardening. Gardening Made Simple offers practical solutions for your gardening lifestyle. Use these simple yet highly effective gardening solutions as inspiration to create useful, easy to maintain spaces of beauty and tranquility.The Garden Gateshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04443048219570370238noreply@blogger.comBlogger11100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3849695126176330791.post-72907400707797683802008-08-08T17:04:00.000-05:002008-08-08T17:06:06.800-05:00<p>About a week ago I turned a year older; I am not saying how old, lets just say I am old enough to know not to tell. I woke up a did my usual morning routine with includes watering my container gardens. I have been working very hard on growing my herbs and some veggies from seed. I have had some success and some failures. One of the troubles I was having was my parsley. I started curled parsley in mid spring from seed these guys where taking their sweet time to grow. Fertilizer helped, of course, and a regular watering. I was just getting them to the point that they where looking like something, when the most amazing thing happened.</p> <p>I counted ten Swallow Tail caterpillars munching away at my baby crop of parsley. It was the most wonderful thing. To think that they thought my parsley was the most delicious to have a feast in my garden. Most would think that this would be a bad thing, but I know how beautiful these creatures can be and what a wonderful contribution to my small ecological environment they have. Sadly enough, all that parsley made them extra scrumptious to the birds and wasps, that also inhabit my garden. By the time I got my camera to share this wonderful experience with you I had one smart caterpillar that had crawled into my basil to hide. I am sure more survived but they are hard to find if they want to be.</p> <p>I had so much fun with these little garden friends, it did not bother me that they decimated my parsley. In fact I am going to grow more next year in hopes they come back for round two. I though it was a great birthday present and I hope this means a year of good things.</p> <dl id="attachment_208" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 310px;"><dt class="wp-caption-dt"><a href="http://www.thegardengatesblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/bug-problem.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-208" title="Caterpillar" src="http://www.thegardengatesblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/bug-problem-300x225.jpg" alt="Caterpillar" height="225" width="300" /></a></dt></dl><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3849695126176330791-7290740070779768380?l=gardeningmadesimple.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>saracdraperhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13704477655315722713noreply@blogger.com0