Hi.
I am Shawna Coronado and I am here today with my little peanut.
And we have something really cool to show you.
Pests.
I mean yuck; gross pests.
And we have them in the garden.
And so we were really wanting to kill them and then decided against it because of something
special we discovered.
So, do you have one of the pests right there?
Yeah.
Little peanut?
Right here.
Right there.
Cool.
And what that is – oh he is moving!
Look at it.
He is so cute.
He is a baby caterpillar.
But look at the damage.
Oh, you have to come up here.
Get that one too.
You have to come up and see the horrible damage.
Look at what these caterpillars do.
Look at my cabbage.
Kiddo I have a big one up here.
Look at this cabbage.
Can you get the big guy there?
They are eating –
There is the other little one.
Oh you got baby.
Ok get that big one.
He – oh do not put him on there.
We are going to put him on the broccoli, right?
Yeah.
So pick that little guy up right there.
He is a big one.
Look at that.
He is big.
Ok let us compare him to his baby.
Oh look.
Ew he is poo-ing.
All right.
So what we discovered about these caterpillars is that they turn into cool butterflies.
And they are called the cabbage butterfly when they emerge from their chrysalis and
it should take about 3 weeks.
The caterpillars like vegetables.
So they are also on our cauliflower which is right here.
So much fun!
Let me see, let me see!
This little guy is starting to crawl off my hand like this little guy is doing right now.
They are crawling because they are alive.
So tell me more about what this guy turns into.
He turns into a little cabbage butterfly.
How you can tell a male from a female is because a male only has one spot on his wing.
And a female has two spots.
Very good.
Well we decided that the broccoli here is where – oh go put him on a broccoli baby.
See the baby that is at the end?
Once they get into the broccoli, it is really tough to wash them out.
See, put him right on the vegetable head.
There you go.
And they really love the vegetables.
Oh he has silk.
Hold that up and I will take a picture.
See him hanging?
He is hanging; he is right there.
That is so neat.
Kiddo, I love that.
Ok so put him on the plant.
So what we are doing is we are rescuing all of the caterpillars so that we can use it
as an educational experience and learn more about nature and butterflies.
And what a better way to do that then, I mean, look at this beautiful, sunny day.
What a great idea to spend a day outside with your family learning about nature, right?
If you do not want these caterpillars, how you get rid of them is you spray a special
poof – it is a little powder of bacteria that kills them.
It is not dangerous to humans.
It is a perfectly organic way to get rid of your caterpillars if you have those cabbage
caterpillars in your veggies.
But what we are going to do is focus on how we can get a little bit something out of this
experience.
And so we are going to save the cabbage, the cauliflower, any lettuces, and we are putting
them all on the broccoli.
So if you want to find a way to get to know your kiddos a little better and also get to
experience nature in a special way, use your garden as a tool.
Look at those pests and learn from them.
And that is our fun for the day.
See you.