This particular insect stretched about three inches long and towered a quarter-inch off the ground.  Scattered mulch would create obstacles for this animal.  So how is it that this caterpillar got itself into my free-standing, 3’2″-tall box of soil and plants?  The bed stands on stilts, and none of the newly-sprouted vegetables hang over the sides.  There’s nothing to see — and caterpillars don’t see well anyway.  Instead they make use of short antennae to find food.  It’s like a nearsighted man walking up to an 83-story building and thinking, “Maybe there’s a burger up there.”  And then climbing it to see.  (Maybe not just like that since caterpillars have 4,000 muscles to our 629, and are hardly ever obese — but still.)  Sure, maybe a bird snatched it, fumbled, and dropped the bug into the bed, a target that is 2′ x 3′ in the wide ranging rest of the world in which the bug could have landed.  This seems about as likely as the caterpillar just happening upon one of the bed’s stilts and then happening its way up it.  And the caterpillar looked to be in fine shape, not like it had tussled with a bird.

Perhaps this was just a particularly skilled caterpillar and therefore deserved to eat some the plants it miraculously found.  Looking at the tiny creature balled up defensively in my hand, I leaned toward it being an oddity that it had made its way into the raised bed.  So, I released the caterpillar in some leafy greens that had bolted, satisfied that I had spared this Sir Edmund Hillary of caterpillars.  However, the next morning the bed had been conquered again, either by this same bug or some other member its family (caterpillars all look alike to me).

My astonishment hints at an essential imbalance in the ecology of my garden.  The pests, including the caterpillar, find the food they want, expertly.  I, on the other hand, know little of their habits and specialties, which makes it unlikely that I will be able to get between them and their (my) food.