Northeast Gardening: It's Butterfly time at my house, 0 by Candyce

Candyce wrote:
As long as I can remember our family has enjoyed watching the many stages of the Monarch butterfly. So we have always gone outside in early to late July to turn over milkweed leaves and look for the Monarch eggs.

We carefully snap off these leaves and place them (no more than four at a time) into an abandoned fish tank with a cover. We add fresh, non-egg holding leaves every day or so, when the caterpillars hatch.

In about ten days to two weeks the caterpillars are large and fat enough to crawl up to the cover of the fish tank and curl up into a 'j' shape. About 24 hours after they 'j', they burst into cocoon.

Right now we have two cocoons, one in a 'j' and the other muching away.

Here is a photo from last year's brood: