Garden Update and Dill Caterpillar revisited

This heat has been hard on training but has been great for my garden, especially the tomatoes and peppers.  Some of the bell and jalapeno peppers are close to maturity and there is a healthy amount of roma tomatoes coming in.  Once these building blocks come in I will be able to reach the full potential of all the associated herbs as well.  I have big plans including gazpacho, cucumber tomato soup, tomato soup, tomato sauce and barbecue sauce to name a few.  Gardens are a great way to increase quality of life and get proper nutrition at the cost of time and sweat.

Dill caterpillar all grown up.

On the herb front the dill, chives, and cilantro have led everything else and flowered.  I will need to reseed or buy new plants to ensure continuity soon.  Since the dill has flowered it has become quite the hit with Swallowtail butterflies.  While I cannot be certain it is my dill caterpillar all grown up, this particular one appeared to be laying eggs. 

So why bother with dill?  It goes great in summer soups particularly tomato soup and tomato cucumber soup.  Dill is great with potatoes of any kind, cucumber salads, and dips.  The caterpillars are small in number and easy to remove without much effort.  There are far worse garden pests, like whatever has been eating all the fresh strawberries.  Even my dog is a garden pest when he rifles through the tomatoes and berries trying to find the ripe ones.  Thus far he has not taken to peppers or herbs.