A Dill-lightful Herb: Dill

Hey Listener, 

In this month's episode, we’re talking all about one Dill-icious herb that we think is a big Dill.  Dill!  We chat about the history of dill, give some tips for growing it in your garden and recommended some varieties we like, all between some great Dill puns. 

We also have our : 

• Native Plant of the Month: Golden Alexanders, or Zizia spp.
• Bug of the Month: Black swallowtail aka the Dillworm
•  Monthly Garden Tips

We currently have an open survey for ALL listeners. Whether you’ve listened to all of our episodes, or this is your first time. We developed an evaluation to determine if the information we share on the podcast has made a difference in your practices at home. We promise that it is a short, easy 5-minute survey, and we even have exclusive podcast stickers to give to those who participate. We are so thankful for the feedback, and we appreciate you tuning in for the podcast! 

You can take our survey here.

 The Garden Thyme Podcast is brought to you by the University of Maryland Extension. Hosts are Mikaela Boley- Principal Agent Associate (Talbot County) for Horticulture; Rachel Rhodes- Senior Agent Associate for Horticulture (Queen Anne's County); and Emily Zobel- Senior Agent Associate for Agriculture (Dorchester County).

Theme Song: By Jason Inc, 

University programs, activities, and facilities are available to all without regard to race, color, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, marital status, age, national origin, political affiliation, physical or mental disability, religion, protected veteran status, genetic information, personal appearance, or any other legally protected class.

Transcript

Garden Thyme Podcast Transcript

 S7:E03 Dill (May 2026)

Note: The Garden Thyme Podcast is produced for the ear and is designed to be heard. If you are able, we strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which includes emotion and emphasis that's not on the page. Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain spelling and grammatical errors.  

:Up beat song:

Mikaela

Hello listener, welcome to the University of Maryland Extension Presents: The Garden Time podcast, where we talk about getting down and dirty in your garden. We're your hosts, I'm Mikaela.

Rachel

I'm Rachel.

Emily

And I'm Emily.

Mikaela

And in this month's episode, we're talking all about dill.

:Up beat song:

Mikaela

I really wish I had a bag of dill pickle chips, to be honest.

Emily

Oh, that sounds great.

Rachel

You know, If dill had a personality, it would absolutely be that one friend who shows up to everything. The golden retriever of the garden. From salads to pickles to seafood to potato dishes, and somehow it isn't tired of itself. And honestly, neither are we. We respect that. This happy little overachiever has been quietly carrying your potato salad since forever, and today it's finally getting its moment. So sit back, relax, and prepare to have your mind mildly blown by something you've been sprinkling on your things your entire life. It's kind of a big dill.

Emily

I feel like that joke is just gonna get used over and over again this whole podcast. But is dill the one that's in tzatziki?

Rachel

Yes.

Mikaela

Yeah.

Emily

Yes. Yes. That's what I like. I, that's my favorite way to put it.

Rachel

Or just dill dip. I love dill, um, as you probably know, dill and radishes. So Emily Michaela, what's a pickle's favorite show?

Mikaela

Um,

Emily

Dill of Fortune.

Rachel

That's good. Dill of Fortune. Oh yeah, dill or no dill.

Emily

I got one for you. What do you get when you cross a pickle and an alligator?

Emily

A croco-a-dill.

Rachel

Crocodile.

Mikaela

Alligator and crocodile are different.

Rachel

I know.

Mikaela

They really are.

Emily

They are. I got one more dill joke for you guys.

Mikaela

Oh no, yeah, hit us.

Emily

So what happens when a pickle gets hit by a car? It becomes road dill.

Mikaela

Oh man, I'm really glad you guys are so entertained.

Emily

So as much as we love dill, um, and it is kind of a forgotten herb, I think, sometimes. So, Michaela, why don't you give us some facts about dill's history with humans?

Mikaela

Well, we do know that dill has been cultivated since at least 400 BCE. Also considered like an ancient good luck symbol. So the Romans considered it a symbol of wealth and prosperity, while gladiators used it on their bodies to prevent infection and gain courage. Which, like, you can imagine warriors in a field probably don't smell great. I guess like dill doesn't hurt. It might even make them smell a little bit better. But just like a bunch of pickled Romans running around. Sorry, that's all I'm about. Pickled Romans.

Emily

I just picture someone taking dill and like rubbing it underneath their armpits.

Rachel

I mean, it had to smell better than that they actually smelled.

Mikaela

Um, in the Middle Ages, it was believed that hanging dill flowers in the home would protect against witchcraft. How? I don't know, but I could see that.

Emily

Dill has really cute flowers, which we're going to talk about later, but you know, make your house smell better.

Mikaela

Herbs have a very strong folklore and they really do.

Rachel

Yeah.

Mikaela

An ancient history steeped in all sorts of fun symbols, symbology. So dill is considered an aromatic self-seeding annual herb. The genus Anethum comes from the Greek meaning to calm or soothe while the species name graveolens means emitting a heavy odor or strong smell. Smelling, which tracks, doesn't it?

Rachel

It does track.

Mikaela

It is thought to have originated in Eastern Europe, southern Russia, and Central and Southern Asia, but it has naturalized in many other parts of the world. Although we know it primarily as a culinary herb, it was historically used for medicinal and magical purposes as well. So love potions, casting spells, protection, which is kind of ironic because I can't think of a more repellent smell, like if you're trying to woo somebody, like your, your perfume is eau de dill or something like that.

Emily

You know what, if someone showed up at my house with a jar of good dill pickles, you know, maybe your ability to use dill is the love potion. I do love pickles though, so maybe that's just me.

Rachel

I mean, I do love pickles, so if someone was trying to woo me They could definitely win. I remember one year as a child I asked for pickles.

Emily

You would.

Rachel

I get pickles. I get some pickles, please.

Mikaela

I think of it like, I smell it and I think, ooh, I'm hungry. But not like, ooh, does that man smell like dill? Hold me back, ladies.

Rachel

I also don't think I'd find that scent attractive in a mate either. I wouldn't be like, oh

Emily

Yeah, I think something like mint, which is going to be sweeter smelling, would be a better perfume. But again, if this is a love potion, so like a potion would be something like you'd eat or drink, so maybe like soups or—

Rachel

yeah, pickles.

Emily

I'm just gonna keep going back to pickles this whole episode. I apologize, guys. Interesting enough that it's used in potions, but then was also used to protect against witchcraft. So it's kind of working both sides of the aisle there.

Mikaela

I mean, that's a smart business move.

Rachel

Yes, it is.

Mikaela

Just saying.

Emily

Never a Dill moment with Dill, guys.

Mikaela

Is this what it's going to be like today?

Emily

It's the real Dill.

Rachel

Those puns just keep on coming.

Mikaela

This script is just writing itself, everybody.

Rachel

I love it. I love it so much. So, if you haven't grown dill before, it is very easy to grow. In addition to its uses in our herb gardens, dill can be an attractive ornamental addition to any annual or mixed border. The finely cut foliage is decorative while when in flower the plants offer some vertical interest. It looks at home in a cottage garden or in other informal plantings. Dill grows best in temperate climates with full sun and well-drained slightly acidic soil. It thrives when temperatures are between 60 to 70 degrees, but once temperatures reach 85, it will bolt, meaning it will go to seed. Plant dill seeds early in the spring, a week or two before the last hard frost date, about a fourth of an inch deep, as they need light to germinate. Plant every 2 to 4 weeks to keep a ready and available planting for use. Seedlings germinate in about 10 days Because of its long taproot, dill is a poor candidate for transplanting. Dill plants can survive low temperatures but grow best at about 70 degrees. So this is a really easy plant for you to start and then move outside or start in your cold frame, or if you have a floating row cover.

Rachel

They grow to about 18 inches, to 4 feet tall depending on the variety, and they do resemble fennel. The soft alternate blue-green leaves are finely divided, giving a fern-like appearance. The leaves can be cut anytime after the plant is a few inches high until the seed stalk begins to form, and you can continually cut the foliage back to help delay flowering.

Emily

I think what's neat about dill is that it can take a lot of that heavy pruning. So like you can grow it and cut it back and it will come back.

Rachel

Yeah. I love to have it in my herb garden just because I love the foliage and I love to use it in different things, but it's an awesome pollinator plant as well. If you let it go to seed and then it will reseed very easily.

Emily

Yeah. So, dill plants will have a significant taproot similar to that of a carrot because they are in the carrot family. Will resemble fennel and can sometimes be confused, but you can distinguish them apart because fennel has a slightly different smell, and fennel will have hollow stems compared to dill. When the weather starts to get hot and dry, so typically around mid to end of summer here in the Mid-Atlantic, dill will get triggered to bolt or to bloom. And I actually think dill has some really cute flowers. So think kind of Queen Anne's lace type clusters, but they're this really cute bright to pale yellow coloration to them. The stalk can get about 18 to 48 inches tall, and you'll have these like umbrella-shaped stalks of flowers that are about 3 inches across. These flowers are super attractive to a wide variety of insects, particularly things like small wasps, flies, those tiny beetles, occasionally butterflies and moths as well. And then if you let them get pollinated, they will turn into these really pretty light brown kind of seed heads. And if you leave that, it will self-seed itself, and then you will have more dill there next year.

Mikaela

Deadhead spent flowers to prevent the prolific self-seeding, or you can use the seeds. In culinary, in the culinary world, right?

Rachel

Yes. You can use the flowers, the seeds.

Mikaela

This is one of those multi-purpose plants, but you can deadhead the spent flowers, um, unless you want the seeds for use. But they will self-seed if you do leave them, and prolifically. And what I would say is if you start to see like a lot come back, you want to thin them out. You don't want to leave them super thick or they're all just going to be really skinny and spindly, and none of them will have, like, much stem strength. The flat-winged oval seeds are only about a quarter inch long with some ridges on the surface. Very characteristic. They also smell a lot like the, the rest of the plant, so they smell very dill-like. And you can harvest dill seed after the stems begin drying out. They turn a golden brown in color, and the seeds get a little bit heavier. They to get some weight to them. And, and you'll probably be able to notice because they, they'll start to like fall off. As soon as you touch a dry seed head, the seeds will kind of fall off on their own. They can be dried on screens or placed in paper bags and left in a warm, dry place for a week before separating the seeds from the stems.

Mikaela

And you can store the seed once it's completely dry, I would say like at least 8 weeks. And the seed can remain viable for several years if you can keep it dry and cool. But if you notice those seeds in storage looking a little fuzzy or moldy, um, just throw the entire container out. It's not worth risking.

Emily

It can kind of outcompete and cluster with itself, but for the most part, dill is a pretty easy growing herb to grow in your garden. So it has very few pest problems, although it will occasionally have aphid outbreaks on it. And there are a few strains of powdery mildew that will also get on it, especially if you put it in an area that maybe it's not getting that full 6 to 8 hours of sunlight. Powdery mildew can develop. A benefit of dill is that deer don't particularly like it, probably because it is so fragrantful and it has that distinct taste. Although if they are hungry enough, it's possible that they will eat it. However, it does have one Pseudo-pest, which is the black swallowtail caterpiller, which is my bug of the month. So we will come back to that in a few minutes. But the black swallowtail is the one that has this very cute, distinct black-greenish-yellow caterpillar. It kind of looks like a monarch, but slightly different, but similar banding patterns. And these caterpillars go to town on dill. Like, dill is their jam. You will see them on there and like the next day you will come back and your dill plant will be like half its size because of how much these caterpillars love to feed on dill.

Emily

So one of the easiest things that you can do is have one dill plant for the caterpillars and one dill plant for you. And the one for the caterpillars, just leave wide out in the open and let them feed. The one that's for you, floating row covers tend to be the easiest way to control these guys. You can hand pick them off, but when they're freshly hatched and they're so tiny, they're hard to see. So, so yeah, if you don't have too many caterpillars, you can just pull them off the plant. Most people prefer just to kind of let the caterpillars be because they really like seeing those butterflies in your garden. But again, if you don't want the caterpillars chewing on your dill because maybe you want the dill to chew on yourself, floating row covers can be a really good alternative. I like to put dill in a bucket and then I put a tomato cage over the top and then I put some netting over it, and then I use a bungee cord at the base to secure it. And then it's easy to take off, harvest my dill, and then put back on.

Emily

So, Rachel, now that I've grown dill and kept all the caterpillars off of it, what am I supposed to do with my dill? Like, I keep using it for pickles, but I'm sure there's many other ways to use it.

Rachel

So, both the foliage and the seeds are used for flavoring. Foods, the leaves are often referred to as dill weed and are distinguished from the dill seed. The aromatic leaves can be used fresh or dried, although the flavor can rapidly decline if you're using them when it's a dried, um, dill. The leaves will wilt once they are picked, but if you keep them in a plastic bag in the refrigerator for about a week, they'll be okay. The leaves can also be frozen, preferably in water, but they might turn dark and some flavor will be lost, but not as much as would be lost if they were dried. Seeds can also be used fresh or dried, and like Michaela mentioned, you can dry this plant down very easily. Also, if you have the ability, Dill oil can be extracted from all the above-ground parts of the plant. So, I mean, we— I think we've talked about all the different foods that we love it in, but there's so many different possibilities of places that you can use dill in your dishes. The world is your pickle.

Mikaela

I have a question though. Why Is it always paired with salmon? I can't figure it out.

Rachel

It goes well together. I can't either. That's amazing.

Mikaela

No other fish or like, I don't know. Are there any other meats that people pair dill with except maybe lamb? Like if you did like a tzatziki sauce or something? I'm just asking. I really don't know the answer to this. This is not like a fun fact thing. I'm just curious.

Rachel

Well, I mean, I use it in like my Swedish meatballs and my Swedish meatballs are usually like I know traditionally it's like lamb and veal, but I do like pork and ground beef, like a cream sauce. I also always use dill in my chicken stock, and it adds a depth of flavor that you can't ever recreate. I love it.

Mikaela

Yeah, it's— it is delicious. But especially delicious on dill pickle chips. Just saying.

Rachel

I love some pickle chips.

Mikaela

Me too.

Rachel

So fun fact, dill has some anti-inflammatory processes too, and maybe that's why the gladiators used it. Yeah, because they were always getting beat up.

Mikaela

They were always getting beat up.

Emily

They're always getting beat up.

Rachel

Oh, well, there's some great varieties.

Mikaela

There's Mammoth. That's the one I most—

Rachel

and Boquette.

Mikaela

Mammoth will have like the giant, I don't know, would you say like 8 to 10-inch flower heads?  Floret.

Rachel

Yeah.

Emily

So if you wanted to grow it for, say, like the flowers and the pollinators, then Mammoth might be an ideal variety for you to grow. Because it has these large flowers.

Rachel

And if you have the space, because Mammoth does what Mammoth says, it is very tall. It's usually like 3 to 5 foot.

Mikaela

Another one that I haven't tried but I'm kind of tempted to is Bouquet because it's a more compact and dwarf form, but it supposedly is better as a cut plant for either culinary purposes or I don't know about being in an actual bouquet because like someone mentioned earlier, it's, it's very wimpy. It does not hold up very well once it's cut, but maybe bouquet can withstand that a little bit better.

Rachel

Yeah, we actually, I grow both.

Mikaela

Oh, you do?

Rachel

Yes. I like Mammoth for pollinators because it's so big and it has those big flat flowers that the pollinators just go gaga over. And I like Bouquet because it is only about 30 to 36 inches tall. It's nice and compact. It's great to use either the Mammoth or the Bouquet flower heads when you're using them for pickling. Bouquet is also really good for container gardens as well because it has that short stature.

Mikaela

There's another one that I would like to try, and it's called Green Sleeves. It's supposed to be resistant to bolting, which is good for warmer climates like we live in because once it bolts, it does not produce as nice of foliage.

Emily

Yeah. I think there's one called— I haven't tried that. I think it's Super Duke as well, are supposed to be more heat tolerant. So there's a few like heat tolerant ones that are out there as well for people who live in more southern states or warmer climates.

Rachel

I think that people don't realize that dill is a cool season herb because we often use it with our warm season crop like cucumbers, or you know, what else do we use it with? Cucumbers. Dill beans. Dilly beans, you know, our green beans. So, we don't think that it's a cool season crop, so we're not used to having it bolt so soon, or we, we don't think about it in our minds that it's going to bolt as fast as it actually does.

Emily

No, I think that's fair.

Mikaela

Dill also makes a really good companion plant because it attracts so many natural predators like the hoverflies.

Emily

Oh yeah, and like all those tiny parasitic wasps, because it's not the kind of flower that wants like the— like big bumblebees and aren't going to cluster on this because it's all tiny flowers, so it's all going to be like those small parasitic wasps or tiny beetles or the smaller flies.

Mikaela

According to the Farmer's Almanac, it makes a great companion plant for broccoli, cabbage, cucumbers, naturally, and peppers, potatoes. Those are the strongest vegetables that it's a companion plant for.

Rachel

And it's all things that it tastes delicious with.

Mikaela

Exactly. I used to think companion planting was because you're supposed to plant things together that tasted good together. I didn't realize like there was a whole theology behind it.

Rachel

Yes.

Mikaela

So, you know, you learn something new every day.

Emily

Yeah. Okay, anything else we want to say about dill? Any more dill jokes? I got one more thing.

Mikaela

I'm not clever at all today.

Emily

Well, you could say, Makayla, that it's never a dill moment when we're talking about herbs.

Rachel

It's never a dill moment here.

Mikaela

Thank you, Emily.

: Bird sound:  It's the Natvie Plant of the Month with Mikaela. :Bird sounds:

Mikaela

Is it that time?

Emily

I think it's time for Native Plant of the Month.

Mikaela

You know what time it is. All right. Native Plant of the Month. So believe it or not, we do have a member of the Apiaceae family that is native to Maryland. And Apiaceae is the carrot family, by the way. It's, it's what dill belongs to. So golden alexanders, or the genus Zizia, and there's a couple of species of Zizia in Maryland, but probably the most well-known and most cultivated is Zizia aurea, or 'Golden Alexanders.' It's got a great name. And while this is considered technically a state rare species in Maryland, it's very popular in the nursery trade for being a low-growing and kind of adaptable landscape plant. It's very pleasing to the eye. There's also a heart-leaved Alexanders, but they are more common or more notable in the mountain or Piedmont regions of the state. I had to pick something in this family, but a lot of things belong to this group. So dill, parsley, and fennel all belong to Apiaceae as well, which means that these are all viable host options for the black swallowtail caterpillar, which I know Emily in like a minute is going to be telling us more about. So this is a great landscape plant though.

Mikaela

It blooms with those kind of classic— we call it an umbel shape, so it's like a umbrella upside down. Actually, no, it's just kind of an umbrella shape. And it's a flower head that's covered in tiny yellow flowers, just like dill. They are extremely popular with pollinators, just, just like dill is. And they bloom around the end of April and into May. And the leaves are also very attractive, but they have a much tougher, more leathery feel to them. They have serrated margins. They look more like a classic leaf rather than the ones that belong to like, um, dill and fennel, which are more feathery and they're more dissected in appearance. These are a little bit more classic in shape. They're also very well adaptable, uh, or they're known for being adaptable, growing in part to full sun. And while they do prefer kind of a wetter or moist soil, they can tolerate dry summer conditions pretty easily. It can also tolerate some shade, but the plant vigor might be less. In those kinds of conditions. So it might be a smaller plant or they don't bloom as well, or the flowers aren't so big.

Mikaela

You know, those are kind of the trade-offs. It's also very tolerant of rocky and clay soils, which is music to my ears. And they will spread by seed just like dill kind of does. And they have a very similar looking seed. They're kind of like a flat oblong shape. And, and they'll kind of start— little babies will start to pop up. It's not aggressive. But you might see little seedlings popping around, which I think is kind of cool. Gives you an opportunity to share with others because it is a very nice landscape plant. It only gets about, I don't know, 2, 2.5 feet tall. So I almost consider it a ground cover because it stays pretty low to the ground. And unlike carrots, this is a perennial plant. So this is something that's going to come back year after year and bloom every year. Because carrots and I think fennel as well. Is it a biennial?

Rachel

I don't—

Mikaela

I think dill is an annual in our climate, but I think those, those other crops are biennial. But zizia is a true perennial plant.

Emily

I mean, with a name like zizia, how could you not grow it? Like, I want to grow it just so I can be like, that's my zizia patch right there.

Mikaela

Zizia.

Rachel

That's a great name.

Mikaela

It sounds like a slang term or something.

Emily

Yeah, it kind of does. I feel like the flowers here are a little bit more pom-pom shaped compared to Dill.

Mikaela

Maybe a little. Yeah, it's not quite as like flattened as well, but it's super cute. Great landscape plant. Honestly, it is very cute. And I have found black swallowtail caterpillars on my Golden Alexanders, but they really do prefer like parsley or dill, I think because the leaves are more palatable, they're more tender. As I said before, these leaves are a little bit leathery, so I don't think they're as consumable, but they will be on here if they don't have anything else.

Rachel

See, I often find— I find my solitaires on dill and parsley as well, and I usually move them over to my bronzed fennel. And they don't, they don't want to deal with bronze fennel. They would much rather be on parsley and tilthu.

Emily

Why is that?

Mikaela

Is that because it has a, like, a darker pigment in the leaf, do you think?

Rachel

I don't know. Or if it's just that smell, that oil of the bronze fennel.

Mikaela

It is strong.

Rachel

More potent smell. Yeah, but they usually are not happy if I do that. And I feel like my butterflies lay on dill and parsley before they'll ever go towards my bronze fennel.

Emily

Yeah, I'd wager that— that probably means that there's like something in the fennel that makes it harder for them to digest or like a scent that gives off because of the butterfly parents actively choosing one over the other and the larvae are. It makes me think that it's yummiere! They're animals. They're going to go to the one that's yummier.

Mikaela

Don't make decisions for me, Mom.

Emily

Gosh. Gosh, Mom. I'll eat the vegetable I want. Oh my God. That's a great native plant of the month though, Michaela. I love it. It's so cute.

Mikaela

Yeah, I'm pretty excited that it all coincided because it just happens to bloom in April and May.

Emily

Perfect.

Rachel

We did it just for you.

: Buzzing Noise - What's Buzzing It's the Bug of the Month with Emily:

Emily

Yeah, so what also happens in May is that we start to get our black swallowtails coming out, and this is my bug of the month. And I was a little surprised that I had not picked this as a bug of the month yet because I feel like when you ask people about an iconic bug that they like, second to monarchs, I think are swallowtails. And I think We've talked about other Swallowtails before on this. When we talked about pawpaws, I know we talked about the Zebra Swallowtail because it's the one that feeds on pawpaws. But the Black Swallowtail, which is also known as the Parsley Worm or the Eastern Black Swallowtail, and this one is a fairly common butterfly that you're going to find throughout North America. So it's found from southern Canada all the way down to South America, but it's more common east of the Rocky Mountains. So you would find the adults typically fluttering around open areas. So think like fields, meadows, grassy parks, wetlands, prairies, and sunny backyards. In Maryland, the Black Swallowtail adults become active in May, and they start to kind of teeter off in September when it starts to get cold.

Emily

The adults, I think, are fairly iconic. They are a dark-colored butterfly with a fairly significant wingspan, so you're thinking about 3 inches to about 4 inches of a wingspan. So they're a good-sized butterfly. You tend to see these pretty readily. And the forewings are going to be dark-colored with yellow markings near the margins, and then that hindwing is going to have two rows of yellow spots along the edges with a powdery iridescent blue area between them. And then near the inside edge of that hind wing you're going to have this red eyespot. The yellow spots are typically larger and brighter on the males compared to the females. The females tend to be a little less dramatic with their wings. Now the underside of the wings are equally as charismatic. So the underside of the wing is going to have two rows of pale yellow spots along the edges with then some orange spots separated by a blue band. Both the male and females have that iconic swallowtail kind of like knob or hindwing tail on them, or have this like long lob or tail on that hindwing. So the reason that they're my Bug of the Month this month is because the larvae use dill and other members of the carrot family as a host plant.

Emily

Plant. So this would be things like dill, parsley, fennel, celery, caraway, and carrots are some of the common ones that you would find in your backyard. But they have also been known to feed on some citrus plants. And then some of our more native species that are also in the carrot family. So things like Queen Anne's lace, wild carrot, and then even poison hemlock and the spotted water hemlock as well. And Mikayla's Native Plant of the Month, Golden Alexandra, is another one that you occasionally will find them on. A fun fact is that all of these plants, while we eat them, do have some mild toxins in them, which the caterpillar, as it consumes, can sequester, which causes them to have a really foul taste to birds and other predators when they go to eat them. Now, unlike the larvae that use all of these plants as their hosts, the adults themselves will feed on common nectar plants that you would also find in your garden. So things like milkweed, thistles, purple coneflowers, zinnias, all of those are ones where you will find the adults. The adults are also commonly seen puddling in puddles to collect minerals.

Emily

So these guys will overwinter as a chrysalis in that pupae stage, and then the adults will emerge in the spring and they'll seek some feeding nectar plants and and then they will mate and the female will start to lay little yellow to cream-colored eggs on the leaves of her host plants. The caterpillars hatch, and the caterpillars, when they very first hatch and through the first kind of instars or molts of their lives, are this like black spiky looking thing that kind of looks like bird poop, which is a very good way to camouflage themselves. So think like— and then they become that iconic white and yellow striped type caterpillar. It's really similar to the monarch, but while the monarch has like these very nice bands to it, these guys have like these little doily half circles to them instead. They will eventually grow to be about an inch to 2 inches long, so the caterpillars get to be a significant size, and it will take them about 10 to 30 days depending on the temperature and the host plant quality that they're feeding on to go through those caterpillar stages. So like other swallowtail caterpillars, the parsley worm has this neat defensive structure called an osmeterum, which is right behind the head, and it generally keeps this hidden.

Emily

But if you poke at it or something goes to eat it, you see this bright yellow, like, V-shaped structure or Y-shaped structure that pops out, and it starts to emit this foul-smelling odor. It is kind of distasteful. So if you were a bird and you were going to go to eat it and then you got this like bad taste in your mouth, you would spit this caterpillar back out. So once the caterpillar is ready to, to pupate, they actually don't typically pupate on dill. They tend to like to find like a more woody plant. And these guys don't pupate underground or make a cocoon or anything. These ones tend to make this little sharp little chrysalis that kind of just looks like a twig. Sometimes they're green-shaped, sometimes they're brown. So some neat things that I found out while researching this was that when it comes to springtime, the male butterflies will emerge before the females, and this is so that they can strike out a territory. And these are not necessarily massive, large territories, but male butterflies will basically pick a territory and they will defend it against other males. Now, This involves, I don't know, some sort of butterfly battle?

Emily

The scientific paper that describes this merely said that they battle, or that they fight and defend their territory. They didn't go into detail, but I just can't figure out how two butterflies would like fight each other.

Rachel

I feel like this is like a Pokémon battle.

Emily

Yeah, maybe. I guess maybe they like— what was interesting was that when they were studying this behavior, The territories that they pick don't correlate with like food sources or something like that. So it's like they would just find like a sunny spot that they think females would be at and they just defend it. So they just don't let any other males hang out in the sunshine, basically. Interesting enough, they did find that when it comes to Black Swallowtails, they are gender-wise sway towards males. So you tend to get like 4 male butterflies per for one female butterfly. So it was kind of an interesting thing that a study found. But if you would like to encourage black swallowtails to visit your garden, you can plant dill and other host plants. So dill or parsley, and that will bring in the females to lay eggs. But you can also provide them with those nectar plants to help feed the adults. So that's my bug of the month!

Rachel

I love your bug of the month. It's one of my favorites to find in the garden.

Emily

I feel like it is. It's a lot of people's favorites. There's just something like, it's big and it's charismatic and it's a charming butterfly, and the larvae are just so cute, especially the little baby ones are really, really cute.

Rachel

You can also find these with a black light.

Emily

You can, yeah. Which again, if you don't want them on your dill or your parsley you can go out with the black light and you can hand pick them off. Okay, Rachel, you got some garden tips of the month for us? Tell me what I need to do this month. Boy, I am so far behind on everything. Aren't we all?

:Tips of the Month with Rachel:

Rachel

I feel like April flew by, May's here, and we're not ready for the garden. Or maybe some of us are really ready and then half of us aren't, who knows? But I know for one, I'm not ready. But, if you love to garden like I do, it is time to plant your warm season crops like tomatoes and peppers after the danger of frost has passed, and for most of us, it already has passed. Check your frost-free date calendar to make sure that you're safe in your zip code. You can mix 1/2 cup of ground lime with the soil, in the soil, as you're planting your tomatoes and peppers to help prevent blossom end rot, and water each transplant with a water-soluble fertilizer like compost tea, or kelp extract, or fish emulsion to get them off to a good start. You're going to pinch back the blooms from the flower of your vegetable transplants when you plant them because you want to establish a good root growth. And if you have any more transplants that you're not ready for them to be put in the ground yet, you're going to pinch off the blooms of those as well.

Rachel

This helps direct the plant energy into root growth and will result in more productive plants. When you're planting your transplants, in the hole. Before you do that, you're going to gently break up the roots from rootbound transplants before planting. You're going to pinch off your tomato suckers to encourage a larger, earlier fruit, especially if you're training to one central stem. We have a great video on the Home and Garden Information Center YouTube channel that we can link in the show notes. I, for one, have been pinching off tomato suckers now for like 2 weeks in the greenhouse, just trying to make sure I establish one central stem for my tomato plants because those suckers can really become advantageous and can weigh down your tomato plants. Your cool season crops like lettuce, broccoli, kale, and radishes may begin to bolt as our temperatures get warmer and warmer, and this means that they're going to go to flower and then seed. If this happens, it's time to remove them and make room for warm season plants. You can also plant some of your summer annual bulbs like gladiolus, elephant ear, tuberous begonias, cannas, catilium, and dahlias. So, get those out in the garden if you love those.

Rachel

Also, ticks are going to become active in May, they might have actually become active in April with the warmer temperatures that we had in April. So make sure that you're wearing light-colored clothing and get in the habit of checking yourself for ticks and your loved ones and your pets, and then closely monitor yourself when you come back inside and your shoes. You can use repellents. They're an effective tool to keep ticks away and You can use duct tape on your pants too, on your socks, to make sure that you're getting those ticks off before you come inside. That's all the tips I have. Short and sweet for May.

Emily

Oh, okay. I think I can manage that. Thank goodness.

Mikaela

See, I say that to myself, but I can't even handle that.

Rachel

You'll be fine. You can do it.

 :Up beat song:

Mikaela

Well, that's all we have for this episode, listener. We hope you enjoyed it and will tune in next month for more garden tips. If you have any garden-related questions, please email us at umegardenpodcast@gmail.com or look us up on Facebook at Garden Time Podcast. That's Garden T-H-Y-M-E. For more information about the University of Maryland Extension and these topics, please check out the University of Maryland Extension Home and Garden Information Center website at go.umd.edu/hgic. Thanks for listening and have fun getting down and dirty in your garden.

 Mikaela 

The Garden Thyme Podcast is a monthly podcast brought to you by the University of Maryland Extension. Mikaela Boley, Principal agent associate for Talbot County. Rachel Rhodes, senior agent associate for Queen Anne County, and Emily Zobel, senior agent associate for Dorchester County.

 
  Emily

Programs, activities and facilities are available to all without regards to race, color, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, marital status, age, national origin, political affiliation, physical or mental disability, religion protected, veteran status, genetic information, personal appearance, or any other legally protected classroom.

: Upbeat Music: