Just found this forum - someone recommended from the Cottage Gardening forum. Love your pic of the caterpillar. My husband and I have been composting for about 15 years. When the snow melts, I'll take some pics. Sue~

It has been a banner year for the BSTs for me this year! Not so for the monarchs :-( But I am hopeful they will make a comeback as well. All of my mw's are healthy and bushy, just waiting for hungry cats! I have had about 35 bst's to raise this year, most are already gone or in chrysalis. Sunday had a female trying to lay eggs on a very windy day and she had trouble landing on the stems. Sadly, the eggs she did manage to lay were infertile (empty shells). But I keep finding new cats and don't know how they got there. I look my fennel and dill over very carefully and still manage to miss an egg or two. I have put various stems of their host plants: fennel, rue, dill, parsley, carrot tops and queen anne's lace in the enclosure at the same time and let the cats pick their favorite food and go for it until it is gone and they have to pick another favorite. They seem to adjust to whatever is available just fine. Good luck. Mechelle

I'm not having much luck with the BST's this year. Last year was my first year for them and at the end of summer I had 12 at one time, all did great and turned into beautiful butterflies. So far this year I found 4 1st instar ones. Everything seemed to be doing okay until they were 5th instar. One of them was lying on the bottom of the tank and his head was sort of black in color. He didn't seem to be doing too good, so I euthanized him. Then the 1st one to pupate couldn't seem to pick a good spot and ended up stuck on the bottom of the tank with his "webbing." I tried to carefully help him on to a stick, but something didn't go right when turning to a chrysalis and he was "leaking" something, so that was the end of him as well :( The last 2 are now Chrysalis and all appears well with them. Whew! These guys are giving me a run for the money this year. I hope I get another batch and all goes better with them. Sherry, last year I had one that was a lot darker, but he wasn't eating or doing too much. I finally figured out he was so dark because his old skin was stuck! I gave it a bit of a nudge, and that did the trick for him.

Thank you guys so much! I am worried because it's my first time, also because I just moved in a new apartment where I do have a private garden and a shed, but I don't know if there are any vermin. As for the BST I have never laid my eyes on them in live, only saw them on google. I was staying few months with my MIL and she lives in country side and has a huge garden, so she gave me a little part to do my vegetable garden. Since I am crazy about herbs (I gome from Republic of Georgia, where we cook with tons of herbs) I planted all sorts and few weeks ago when I went to clean up my garden I found those. Neighbour told me they made white butterflies, but after googling I found out what they were. As a kid in Georgia I used to have silkworms and since then I always wanted to breed butterflies, never really got to it since we have been moving all around Europe. I just got lucky and I want to carry on. I was planning to get some butterfly kits and nets online, but when I saw their prices I made the netting myself as I am sure many of you do. Now when I picked my Dill and Parsley there seemed to be another egg and it's hatched now, I am going to visit my MIL and check my plants if I find some more. Thanks everyone for helping and sorry to be a pain. BTW I am having problems uploading photos directly from my PC, gonna figure that out so I can share some photos too, Another question, container does nod need to have air holes?