Get Your Children Out In Nature – Study Cabbage Caterpillars In The Garden

We discovered cabbage worms in our broccoli. Ick. Gross. Blech. Nasty. Then my eight year old and I discovered that the Cabbage Worm Butterfly (known as the “Cabbage White”) is what the Cabbage Worm Caterpillar develops into. What a fantastic way to get your children out in the garden to learn about nature! You can see our discovery in the video above. 

In hopes of seeing the butterflies in our own front yard, we are now rescuing wayward cabbage worms and placing them on all our broccoli. The idea is to save the cabbage, kale, cauliflower, but to use the brocooli as a breeding ground for the little green caterpillars.

We are already finding chrysalis’s around the garden filled with the sleeping babies and cannot wait to see the butterflies emerge.

Get your children out in nature – it is a very green and healthy thing to do and they will love the time you spend together learning. Happily, the front yard veggie garden has turned into a wonderful experiment for our family.

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com, The Green Blog - www.gardeningnude.com, or The Garden Blog - http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Comments

[Shawna Coronado]

This was such a wonderful experiment! My daughter and I truly learned a lot and she is adopting gardening as an important part of her life. Fun stuff! :-)

Thanks for your comments!
Shawna

[nitrile gloves]

Sounds great...these days children are going further away from nature and gardening.

[Marianne Arkins]

We raise both black swallowtail (commonly called "parsley worms") and monarchs in our home every year. I refer to it as Pillar Place on my blog. It's wonderful to watch and nothing can replace the amazing feel of holding a butterfly -- My DD releases all of our butterbabies and gets to handle each one at least a little. What a gift.

I'm glad you're enjoying your OWN butterbabies. Thanks for the post.

[Joe Lamp'l]

Very cool. What a great activity to do on a summer day and get outside in nature. Keep us posted as we'll be anxiously waiting to see what happens next!