The eastern swallowtail caterpillars munch on parsley and fennel on their metamorphic journey. While harvesting herbs and flowers from the garden, I encountered a variety of diligent laborers among the plants. These tenant farmers were working for a share of the crop. Some had been invited to the garden while others were unexpected.

The eastern black swallowtail butterfly was a regular at my butterfly brewery of azaleas, butterfly bush, lantana, zinnia, and butterfly weed. In late summer eastern black swallowtails were more abundant in the herb garden than among the annuals and perennials. When I went to snip a handful of parsley for a recipe, I found a bunch of eastern black swallowtails had already harvested most of it. Since they would become more butterflies and the parsley would eventually grow back, these sharecroppers were safe on my property.

Similar striped caterpillars were chomping on the bronze fennel, also a host plant for the eastern black swallowtail.

Beautiful star–like flowers that can be eaten along with the pungent leaves make garlic chives a must for the herb garden. Garlic chives, allium tuberosum, are a beautiful perennial in bloom or in seedhead. They are used fresh or in cooking. Since they reseed readily, collecting seed to store or share is easy. Insects visit the flowers for nectar and pollen and one of the largest visitors this summer was the cicada– killer wasp. Usually these large black wasps with yellow stripes on the thorax and abdomen are seen skimming along the ground in late summer searching for cicadas. They capture, sting, and paralyze the cicada and take it back to their nest to feed to larvae.

While nectaring on the garlic chives, the cicada killer wasp was pollinating more blossoms and oblivious to my photo shoot.

Some gardeners cultivate the perennial passion vine, Passiflora incarnata, for the exotic tropical flower; others grow the fleshy fruit or “maypop” for wildlife. I grow the vine to observe the life cycle of the gulf fritillary butterfly. Female fritillaries lay their eggs on the underside of the passion vine leaves. In three days the larva or caterpillar appears. At maturity the caterpillar is bright orange with black spines. Larvae eat their share of the crop and can easily defoliate a plant before pupating. The chrysalis looks like a dry brown dead leaf.

Cicada killer wasps pollinate herbs. Passion vines quickly regrow decimated foliage and vines are easily propagated by underground runners.

As you harvest in the garden this fall notice the many sharecroppers and instances of sharecropping benefiting your landscape.
The gulf fritillary caterpillar can defoliate a passion vine before pupating.