Innisfil Community Gardens

06/11/2026

Start of a new growing season

05/16/2026

White clover

05/16/2026

Borage

I spent my thirties pulling my hair out trying to keep the vegetable beds perfectly neat. It took me twenty years to realize the messiest plant in my garden was actually doing most of the heavy lifting. Every spring, this curious little oddity pops up wherever it pleases. Tidy gardeners usually rip it out the second they spot those fuzzy leaves. I used to do exactly the same. Then I started noticing something. The years I was too busy (or entirely too lazy) to w**d it out, the aphids completely stopped bothering my vegetables. They went straight for this plant instead. The soil where it grew got noticeably softer. And by mid-summer, the beds where I let it roam were absolutely humming with bees. Turns out, this rogue self-seeder doesn't just take up space. It quietly acts as a decoy for pests, pulls up deep nutrients for a natural fertilizer, and breaks up compacted dirt all at once. And you can actually harvest it for the kitchen—the bright blue flowers taste exactly like a very specific summer vegetable. There are about fifteen reasons I finally stopped fighting this plant and just let it run wild. If you're tired of fussing over your garden and wouldn't mind something that actually does the hard work for you, you might want to figure out what this is and let it stay.

05/16/2026

Mid May planting

05/10/2026

05/10/2026

Wood chip mulch suppresses w**ds but feeds nothing. A living groundcover does both — chokes out w**ds, supports pollinators, and hosts butterfly larvae.

Six low-grow species worth planting instead:

White clover — sunny areas, fixes nitrogen, naturalized and well-behaved in mixed plantings
Pussytoes — full sun, dry soil, native, American Lady butterfly host, silver-grey mat
Pennsylvania sedge — dry shade under oaks, native, slow to establish but the best option for that difficult spot
Wild strawberry — native, aggressive runners fill in fast, edible fruit
Creeping phlox — woodland edges, native, strong shade tolerance, spring bloom
Native violets — part-shade, native, the host plant fritillary butterflies depend on

Match the plant to the light. Buy plugs or seed for fastest fill-in. Year 1: keep w**ds out while plants establish. Year 2: most fill in. Sedge and slow species: plan for years 3-4.

The groundcover that feeds the food web while suppressing the w**ds.

05/10/2026

We are just 3 weeks away from opening day 🎉. We can't wait to see everyone, and are looking forward to another great season of supporting local!

Who's excited?

05/10/2026

That's not a monarch caterpillar on your dill. The host plant is the identification.

Monarch caterpillars eat milkw**d. Only milkw**d. A caterpillar on your dill, parsley, fennel, or carrot tops is not a monarch — it's a black swallowtail. The two are sometimes confused because both have bold banding patterns, but they eat completely different plants and belong to different families.

The host plant is the fastest field ID for any caterpillar. 🌿

A black swallowtail caterpillar is bright green with black bands and yellow or orange dots within each band. It feeds on plants in the carrot family — dill, parsley, fennel, Queen Anne's lace, carrot tops, and celery. It curls into a J shape when disturbed and extends an orange forked osmeterium from behind its head, releasing a foul smell.

A monarch caterpillar has white, yellow, and black stripes in a consistent banding pattern. It feeds exclusively on milkw**d. It never appears on dill or parsley.

The confusion matters because gardeners who find caterpillars on their herbs sometimes remove them — assuming they're pests. The black swallowtail caterpillar eats a small amount of foliage, pupates, and becomes one of the most common and beautiful butterflies in the eastern states.

🐾 Quick ID:

- On dill, parsley, fennel, or carrot tops = black swallowtail
- On milkw**d = monarch
- Green with black bands and yellow dots = black swallowtail
- White/yellow/black consistent stripes = monarch
- Both are native. Both are beneficial. Neither is a pest.

The caterpillar eating your dill isn't a pest. It's a butterfly in progress. The herb recovers. The butterfly doesn't come back if you remove the larva.