The Cilantro Thief

You may remember that not too long ago thanks to a sponsored post I created the most fantastic kitchen herb garden. I loved it, well, I still do, but thanks to some cilantro thieves I need to do a little replanting for it.

Let me start at the beginning. It’s not a long story, but one that needs to be told. Well, maybe not a need, but I wanted to share my story anyway.

The other day I woke up and started in on my morning kitchen routine. Finishing up any last minute dishes or counter clearing neglected from the previous night, getting the kids breakfast, making my own breakfast and coffee, sweeping the floor, feeding the pets, you know, the usual morning routine for many people. It was a regular day, nothing new, same old, same old. Then I saw something that didn’t look right.

I expected to see this:

I was giving my husband a hug and I just happened to notice something in the corner of my eye that didn’t look right as I gazed over his shoulder.

My kitchen herb garden didn’t look right. Something was off.

I pointed it out to him and mentioned that something had eaten my cilantro! In the title picture you can see the tops of my cilantro plant are missing!

In no time flat we were face to face with the attacked cilantro inspecting it for clues to who the culprit was. My first suspect was our cat Bagheera. She likes to eat my houseplants and, well, just look at this face!

This suspect was quickly cleared when my husband pointed out that only the top leaves were eaten and not the bottom. If she had climbed up there to snack on my cilantro she would have gone for the bottom leaves which would have been easier to reach at a better angle for her.

I stared at those plants for quite a while trying to figure out what I missed, then I remembered a couple days prior to that I found an inch worm on the thyme and let the girls study it before they took it outside.

The answer was found!

Upon closer inspection we noticed at least four or five inch worms blending in perfectly among the stems and leaves. No wonder we hadn’t noticed them!

These are close up pictures I took, then cropped the down even more so you could really see them. It was hard to get them to show up in the pictures because they are small and they blend in really well. I guess their camouflage is needed to protect them from birds and other preditors, and wow they are good at it!

When we had the plants sitting outside waiting for a chance to repot them into the mason jars for our kitchen herb garden a moth must have stopped by to lay her eggs. With the nice warm sun from the window, the moisture from watering the plant and of course the presence of all that tasty cilantro the eggs hatched in no time and in just a matter of a few hours while I was sleeping they took out almost the entire plant.

I left the plant outside for them to finish eating, then move on their merry way to the next plant. Now I’ll need to run to the store to pick up our next herb to make it’s home in our kitchen garden.

Hopefully this next one won’t have moth eggs on it!

Have you ever been surprised by a plant being taken out practically overnight by something? Tell me your story in the comments. I’d love to hear it.