The 2026 Monarch Season

The monarch season is over at Downeast Thunder Farm. This weekend I released the last few butterflies to hatch in the little Monarch B&B. Thirty-two monarchs were raised from caterpillar to butterfly this season. It was a fun and manageable season, if smaller than last year‘s 101 monarchs. Hopefully they are all on their way to Mexico for the winter!

Last year truly was the Summer of the Monarchs. The butterflies arrived at my house earlier than previous years. This year, they arrived late.

My misguided attempt to introduce Common Milkweed to my garden became overwhelming. It spreads voraciously through underground runners and began to overtake my flower garden. Last fall, I ripped out as many Common Milkweed roots as I could and covered the ground with black plastic all winter. In June, I pulled the plastic up and planted eight new Swamp Milkweed plants. They have flourished and will hopefully come back even stronger next year.

I planted Bloodflower seeds in pots because they reportedly attract butterflies. It turns out they are really Tropical Milkweed. A happy accident, and they were very popular with the Monarchs – although this far north, they are an annual.

I discovered my first caterpillars three weeks later than last year, which likely contributed to the smaller number.

I had at least another 20 caterpillars in the Milkweed, but I left them to their own devices. I didn’t have the time or energy to wrangle another round in the Monarch B&B. In fact, today – September 9th – Hannah spotted yet another caterpillar happily munching away. It’s a tough time of the year for caterpillars; we had our first night below 40 degrees since April.