I grew dill this year. I had tried two years prior and slugs and snails mowed it down. I had grandios ideas of making dill pickles, but my cucumber plants did not produce enough cucumbers. However, I love the look of dill. It does look like you grew something amazing towering above the broccoli plants.

I grew it last year and put it in the middle of a huge container on the deck. I had never grown it before and was amazed at it's height. I also had White Admiral butterflies checking it out quite often.

Don't know why I didn't do it this year. Definitely a nice plant!!

We grow dill for pickling and for fish dishes and for caterpillars. I love the smell of it in the garden and I just like the way it looks - it gets scattered every year in flower beds and in an actual row in the veggie garden.....

Lynne

I winter-sowed Dill this year, the first time ever growing it. I loved it! It has beautiful feathery foliage with a bluish tint, and the umbels of yellow flowers were lovely and fragrant. They attracted a ton of pollinators! My Dill has pretty much gone to seed, and I kinda wish I had a 2nd planting of it. Has anybody ever grown a later crop of this?

A few days ago, I found one Black Swallowtail caterpillar on the Dill, but there are at least a dozen big fat caterpillars on the Bronze Fennel (also WS).

A pic of my Dill when it was blooming -

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Well, I TRIED to grow dill, lol, but no luck yet with WSing.

I actually planned on growing it as an herb, for food. While walking in a friend's garden to cut some flowers, I came across her dill all over (a very informal garden!) and loved it as a decorative plant. That color is great - a kind of lemon-limey green. I cut some and put it in a bouquet with some deep purple hydrangeas and orange tiger lilies. Gorgeous.

Now I'm determined to grow some for cutting.... and maybe to use in cooking too!

:)
Dee

I've been cutting and using my fresh dill for over a month now. Some I let go to seed to have seeds for next year.
Some is used fresh and some I dry for use over the winter.
As soon as I cut the branches off to use, new growth comes out from the cut branches. Same for the ones I let go to seed.
By cutting back on the dill, you will have new growth until the frost hits it.

Been doing this for 28 years and never fails, regardless of the type of dill you are growing.

Fran

I grow dill just for butterflies and because I love the smell. Never make pickles. My mom made pickles every year. I planted dill one year and now let it self seed.

I tried planting it last year for pickling and it did not sprout at all.
So I had kinda given up/forgotten to plant it this year (even though I needed it for pickling) and low and behold I have a big old patch of it now where I sowed the seed a year ago. So it is thick in my veggie garden with the garlic for this year. I hadn't thought of planting it in my flower beds though. What a great idea, I'd bet it would make a beautiful filler annual.

I grow it because it smells so dang good!!!

I grow it because I LOVE it for cooking,munching and of course, the caterpillars! it is one of my favorites, I am planning lots of Dill and Fennel next year. I do love it with flowers,it is a good choice for a filler,for a living bouquet!;)

We grow dill simply for the butterflies!
And we now grow it from seed because last year (or two years ago?) at our local corner garden shop's end of season sale, DD found about 6 dill plants EACH with one or two swallowtail cats on them. So we HAD to buy them...all...

She is now appeased by growing the dill with hopes of getting cats (so that I don't have to spend money on purchasing plants)

I grow it for smelling eating cooking and hope to can this year too.

I grow parsley because the first I ever bought had cats on it. Now I grow both parsley and dill for the butterflies!

My granddaughter calls dill 'fireworks flowers'.

I grew tons of it for the Black swallowtail butterflies. We brought 13 in and raised them from teeny tiny things and all but three have hatched and been released. The last 3....I'm thinking they might be trying to overwinter or something. I'm sooooo glad I planted tons of parsley!

I don't like dill for cooking, but it sure is a pretty plant. Thank you, my friends, for giving me even more ideas for plants to grow up here - where I have NO more space!

PV

I do this too, love the look of dill. I also plant fennel, for the same reason. I love the look of fennel in amongst my coneflowers.

Jenny P

Dill has been my never fail herb. At my present home I planted a row of dill in the veggie garden 20 years ago and have never planted again. Even through yearly tilling the dill comes back in the same general area of the garden thicker then ever and also pops up here and there (I need to thin out each year). Always enough for fresh use, pickling, drying and giving away. It's great in a fresh bouquet!

Will need to put fennel and parsley on the to grow list for next year!!

Sandy

I grew it this year for the Monarch caterpillers, but the slugs got to it first!!

Northerner, Monarch butterflies lay their eggs on Asclepias or Milkweed plants. It's the Black Swallowtails that lay their eggs on Dill, Fennel, Rue, Parsley, etc.

This was my first year growing Dill and Bronze Fennel (both WS). I have 1 Black Swallowtail caterpillar on the Dill right now, and had over a dozen cats on the Bronze Fennel, but they have all gone somewhere to pupate. I've been bringing in Monarch eggs and cats to raise, but didn't do so with the Black Swallowtail (taking baby steps here, maybe next year).

This is a Black Swallowtail caterpillar on Bronze Fennel -

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This is a Monarch caterpillar on Asclepias curassavica -

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Happy New Year everyone!

I received a free package. The description says "Dill Bouquet SwallowTail Host Plant". Are these annuals? Can they be wintersowed in January? Or do I have to wait for warm spring? What is their height?

Oh, and is Dill Bouquet the common name or just Dill?

Thanks!

Did it come from the Newbie Seed Project? I did send out some Dill and it's just dill. If so, they can be sowed anytime and are annuals.

hi bakemom,

I bought some seeds from ebay 2 weeks ago. The seller included it as a free. So these are hardy annuals since you mentioned it can be sowed anytime?

Thanks.

Dill self sows in my garden. The first seeds must have blown from my neighbor's garden across the alley 20 years ago. I have never been without it since. I love it as fillers. Caterpillars love it too. I saw one or two every year. I wonder if I see any this year I should capture him and take him inside dill plant and all. Does anyone have any suggestion on how to raise caterpillars?

Did dill for the butterflies-also did bronze fennel for them. One year I used purple basil as accent plants! It looked really cool-might do it again this year!
-B

My dill also self seeds-with more success than the seeds I plant! I just wish it would do it in BACK of the shorter plants! (ha-ha!) Now I'm interested in the bronze fennel, I have some seeds from a trade, do they winter sow & how large are the plants? Does anyone use it for cooking, or is it ornamental & for the butterflies?

So I can just spread them then and let nature do its job.

I winter-sowed both Dill and Bronze Fennel last year. Referring to my handy-dandy *Winter/Spring Sow Chart* for 2008, it says they were sowed on March 21, the Dill sprouted April 10th and the fennel on April 18th. The dill was a fantastic grower, bloomed abundantly and made a zillion seeds, and was even reseeding itself in the garden this fall already. Got 4 decent seedlings of the Bronze fennel.

The Dill is an early blooming annual, the Bronze Fennel is late-blooming and apparently, it is perennial to zone 4? We will see if they come back.

I had Black Swallowtail caterpillars on both. Pitimpinae, I am planning to bring in any cats I see next year and raise them inside. Check out the butterfly forum, there is lots of info there. I raised Monarchs last summer for the first time, and it's pretty easy.

Here are my Fennel/Dill seedlings, last May before they were planted out. The Bronze Fennel looks sort of tiny and wimpy here, but they turned into 4 good sized plants with blooms 3-4 feet high.

If it keeps the rabbits away - I'll grow some!

:0)

Carrie

I grow dill in my herb garden especially for thr birds.I have paracantha,nandina an holly trees for them to have berries.They get most of my coneflower seeds too.And still put out water and seeds fir them.I also have a metal feeder my son built in the trees especially for the squirrels.I keep this filled with pecan and walnuts.

I started growing dill 2 seasons ago for butterflies. I don't do "herb gardens" but I do have several herbs here & there for B&Bs. I like the look of a large dill, too.
(I also can't cook to save my life, and wouldn't know what do DO with dill for real, anyway)