Little Garden Visitors

Mom and dad visited today and mom helped me harvest veggies out of the garden.  I went to pull some carrots and I suddenly saw some little visitors.  Can you see them in this photo?  It's a little hard to tell in this photo.

So here is a better look.  See it now?  I took these photos with the crappy camera on my cellphone.  So I couldn't get it to focus.  Sorry for the blurry photo.  This little gal was munching away on the carrot tops.  This is my first time growing a bunch of carrots, I had no idea that it would attract so many butterfly caterpillars.  Interestingly, it seemed like they only were chomping on the carrot tops, and not much else in the garden. That is a relief!

Another view.  I Google searched caterpillars and found that these could be Monarch butterfly caterpllars!  There were so many in the carrot raised bed, I saw at least 10.  They were only eating the tops of the carrots, so I left them undisturbed.  If they didn't turn into something so pretty, I would definitely consider disposing of these monster eaters.  But since I don't eat carrot tops anyway, I really didn't mind my new visitors.  They will consume everything in it's path, but butterflies are such great pollinators so they can gorge themselves in my garden.  I'll forgive them.

Here are some of the carrots I pulled.  These are Purple Haze.  I got these seeds from Greens and Jeans. I have never grown purple carrots before.  These are pretty neat.  They don't look very "purple" to me, more like a chocolate brown.  I grew a lot of different purple veggies this year.  Purple tomatoes, carrots, and bell peppers.  They are fun to grow because they are so unique!

And here is today's harvest!  The garden is finally in full swing production.  I really can't believe I grew all of this!!  Wow!  I'm getting a little bummed that winter is around the corner.  I've got to get me a greenhouse!!  :)