This is the first year we have grown corn in our garden. (I don’t count the year we naively only planted four stocks. Literally four.)
We had some mishaps with a few stocks last month when a giant windstorm blew through, but the tall rows still turned out beautiful.
I picked some of the ears a couple of weeks ago, anxious to sink my teeth into them only to pull back the husks and find several green, wiggly caterpillars staring back at me.
I was repulsed!
My boys were thrilled.
I found myself in the middle of a caterpillars-in-the-corn hunt.
I picked the corn and my boys sat on the back lawn husking ear after ear in search for more caterpillars. (I wasn’t about to let them know they were doing me a favor.)
They’d pull one back and ooh and ahh at the size of the squirmy bug inside. They threw husks all over the lawn as they separated the corn from the caterpillars.
When they had scavenged through them all, they took their seven or eight caterpillars into a net and started setting up habitats for them.
Jars, sticks and grass were spread across our kitchen table as they worked making homes for their new pets.
They found them “juicy” leaves and put in tiny water dishes. They gave them climbing sticks and soft grassy beds.
They did some research online for things caterpillars liked and they gave it their all.
Several of the caterpillars have not made it but two of them have grown brown, thin chrysalises. I’m hoping they turn into beautiful butterflies.
I may not have been happy about the bugs in my corn, but it was so fun to see what the boys did with them. And it made all husking work a heck of a lot easier!
Boogers on the Wall 