Need Passionfruit Daquiris!

Passionfruit daquiris are an awesome treat, especially when made from juicy pulp from ripe yellow fruits plucked from your very own vines. Unfortunately, our passionfruit arbor was taken out by the last hurricane. We desperately want the remaining original plant to colonize the newly repaired arbor, but the Gulf Fritillary butterflies have another thing on their minds: laying eggs. Those eggs morph into ravenous caterpillars that would eat every scrap of green leaf if I didn't intervene. I go on caterpillar patrol. I try and remember to do it every morning. I lift the little buggers off the leaves and toss them on the brick path and assuredly squash them with my flip flop.

I mostly like caterpillars, in fact for a long time I've been wanting a caterpillar house.--a little screened porch-like enclosure where I could put them along with their food plant and watch them become pupae and hatch.

Just this morning, I recognized the butterfly eggs. Better to squash an egg I guess. Better yet, to have a full, leafy arbor to share with the caterpillars. Don't know where the native passionfruit vines are--haven't seen any this year.

How to: I cut the fruits in half and scoop out the seeds and put them in a coarse strainer over a glass. Then use the back of a spoon to squish them so the juice dribbles into the glass. You don't need much. One fruit's juice is enough for one cocktail. Rob invented a terrific drink called a Passionate Kiss. It has passionfruit juice, rum, soda water, and a little Controy (orange liqueur). Delicious!

I tossed the post Passionate Kiss seeds in the garden and have a zillion new seedlings ready to transplant. So far, the butterflies haven't discovered them....