Check out the pretty well-camoflaged caterpillar munching on my basil! Can you see him? Bonus points if you can identify the type of caterpillar (there are bug identifying tools over there in the resources tab).
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These are books that I really enjoyed reading (and refer back to regularly). They'll be a great help to you on your container gardening adventures:
Garden Up! by Susan Morrison and Rebecca Sweet
Succulent Container Gardens by Debra Lee Baldwin
Sugar Snaps & Strawberries by Andrea Bellamy
Bountiful Container by McGee & Stuckey
Small Budget Gardener by Maureen Gilmer
Southern California Organic Gardening by Pat Welsh
Container Gardening for California
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
He certainly is well camouflaged! I have no idea what type he is…a basil eating catepillar?
LOL. Well, in that case, he is now a Coreopsis eating caterpillar, because I put him on the Coreopsis growing in the beds around my apartment.
Is this the only catepillar you see in your garden? They turn into pretty white butterflies. Watch out if you grow vegetables because the catepillars can multiply and destroy your vegetables! Catepillars are cute creatures though!
Ah…I have seen that butterfly hanging around. Yes, this is the only type of caterpillar I have seen in my garden. One of its siblings ate virtually all the leaves on one of my Dahlias before I was able to relocate him/her.
Hi, this is an old post, but I have caterpillar news! We found the same caterpillar in our basil, and we kept it in a butterfly house until it made a cocoon and emerged as a black moth. (we actually found another fuzzy caterpillar and kept that one until it emerged as a white fuzzy moth, so we’re 2 for 2). Anyway I have pics on my blog of the two moths. Still do NOT know the names though! Here’s the black moth (scroll down to find the pics in both links): http://tiny.cc/wehhx and here’s the white moth: http://tiny.cc/oid1l
Debi–If you saw the same caterpillar as I found and photographed for this post, the moth is Manduca quinquemaculata.