Hello my friends,

Happy weekend!!

I’ve got a new butterfly tale for you this week. I’m a great lover of ‘Cabbage butterflies’ they’re pretty much considered a pest and we as humans seem to actively seek and destroy them, which I find really sad so its become fairly well known that I purposely grow cabbages for the butterflies as I view them as a butterfly underdog. 

Anyway, this post began last autumn when the last batch of Large white (Pieris brassicas) caterpillars were happily munching on the last of my cabbages just as the rainy season started. I moved them (cabbage and all) into my butterfly house where they began to pupate over the next few days – these butterflies overwinter in the pupa stage and emerge in spring. So I had 43 of these pupa to guard over the cold moths. (if you want to see a reel of one after its release click HERE *link takes you to my IG*)

Excitingly these butterflies all successfully emerged and were released back at the end of April, Large whites are funny they don’t like to breed indoors but the minute they’re outside they mate left, right and centre, one of the females laid a batch of eggs on my Honesty plants, as my cabbages weren’t very big – unfortunately I didn’t spot the tiny caterpillars until I’d cut the plant down, so feeling guilty I bought them a tray of baby cabbage plants and moved them to safety. 

They ate me out of house and home!

Large whites are such a pretty caterpillar when they’re nearly fully grown. *this is the exciting if you click on the image above it should take you to a post on IG where you can see them moving about!*

FWIW Cabbage butterfly is actually there term we give to several white butterflies Large/Small/Green veined they all look basically the same as butterflies but the caterpillars are so different.

Just to point out my usual butterfly raising disclaimer, I’m only rescuing the ones I can identify as eggs as some caterpillars can be tricky to raise or are protected species. If I don’t trust that I can look after them properly and give them the right food plant/proper environment then my plan is always to just leave them alone.

A few did escape (the perils of not checking the zip) but 29 of them stayed in the house and pupated. I love the 48 or so hours before the main event when the chrysalis becomes translucent and you can see the butterfly inside! 

The big release day came and went and off they flew out into the big wild world. *if you click on the images above it should take you to a post on IG of more release day photos!*

Its so lovely to see them all flying around at once something I’ve noticed is that because my garden contains so many nectar plants and cabbages they don’t really fly away, they might venture into the surrounding area but there is always at least five Large whites in the garden at any one time, and one of the females even laid more egg the next day so I have another forty-something caterpillars to care for!

I really hope you enjoyed this little slice of fluttery goodness! I feel super privileged to have been able to raise these chaps, especially as I cut down the plant they were on and I’m hoping to be able to write another post about more caterpillars soon!

As always thank you so much for reading this post and have a great week!