First butterfly visitor of the year

First butterfly visitor of the year. (Click to see more detail.)

Anyone know what kind of butterfly this is?  With the camera picking up details my eyes couldn't catch, it almost looks a little mothy.  (Side note: The plant he's sitting on is a flowering bok choy. True story!)  He and his buds were as eager as I was to get out in the sun after these last few days of clouds and rain.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm absolutely ecstatic about the rain -- all 1.96 inches of it that fell on my yard. I'm just equally enamored by cool, sunny afternoons. We don't have too many more of them left this year before the heat really turns on to bake. I can't help but revel in the temperature today.

Despite the perfect weather to be out in the garden, I'm holding off until after March 15th before planting my tomato, cucumber, and zucchini transplants. (I really do need to get a post up about them!) Austin's average last frost date is March 15.  Although I'm eager to see if I can grow a significant amount of tomatoes this year, I've been nurturing these plants since they were seeds on January 1st. I have to keep reminding myself that they are warmer weather plants. I certainly don't want to throw away all that time, love, and energy because of a little impatience!

Invasion of the Mosquito Hawks !

Just like the Marfa lights, mosquito hawks can be
tricky to catch in action.

It started a couple weeks ago. I found one or two of these flying bugs near the front door under the porch light. No problem.  Later that week one was bobbing around the kitchen windows (on the incorrect side). I know they're harmless, so I ignore it.  Then, with a turn of my back and the weekly calendar, mosquito hawks are *everywhere*! Soaking up the rays from the front porch light. Spa'ing in the bathroom by my 10x mirror. Bobbing above the artichoke plants like daytime Marfa lights.

I swear I've never seen so many as I have this winter, and while we've had a milder winter than usual, it's still too cold for mosquitoes. So as I sweep up their deceased carcasses from my window panes, I wonder.  What the heck are they eating?

This crane fly was trapped in my greenhouse. Sorry,
there's nothing to scale. Wingspan is about 2 inches.

Turns out, not a lot. First of all, mosquito hawks in Texas don't eat mosquitoes. (Just wishful thinking on our part.) The nickname comes from the fact that ours look a heck of a lot like mosquitoes, only bigger. In Florida I knew them as daddy long legs, but because spiders eek me out more than mosquitoes, I gladly switched nomenclatures. Turns out, these flying insects are actually a type of crane fly.

Crane flies are a beneficial garden insect, but their benefits wear off once they reach adulthood. In their youth, they eat decaying matter and help break down dead plants in your backyard.  In their adulthood, all 1 to 2 days of it, they look for mates by bobbing around like drunken June bugs.  They don't really eat as adults and they don't bite or transmit disease, so no need to panic when they get indoors. But alas, no need to try to rescue them either. They're like house flies in that they can see your hands coming a yardstick away, and there's no convincing them that you're just trying to help. I do feel a little bad that my house lured so many of these garden beneficials astray, but Nature has already planned ahead by sending us such a bumper crop this year.

Check out the Department of Horticultural Resources at Texas A&M for more info about the crane fly.

OMG! Cauliflower!

Cauliflower peek-a-boo

My winter garden has been the most productive I've ever had and the weather's been perfect for it. I decided to buy more than the usual number of transplants this year to make sure that I had something to harvest. It worked.  I had 6 collard greens, 6 kale plants, 6 broccoli plants, and 6 cauliflower plants all growing through our mild winter.  We only hit below freezing once this year and even though those the kale looked like sullen teenagers the next morning, they all perked up again by the afternoon.

I was keeping an eye on the cauliflower heads especially, and when they got big enough, Dan and I went around tying the leaves up with rubber bands to shield the heads from the sun. Then about a month ago, we had a particularly warm day in January, and I noticed that the heads were already starting to separate like they do before going to flower.  Well, I had no choice but to cut four of them down and then figure out what to do with them.

The heads weren't terrible big, compared to the supermarket. They wouldn't win any prizes in perfection, either. But dang if they didn't look gorgeous in this large colander. Bonus: They tasted quite a bit like cauliflower, too.

(I love the colors in this shot. Some of the white cauliflower did get a little violet from exposure to the sun, but just along the edges.)

So what do you do when you have too much cauliflower to eat right away? You give it away, of course! But I didn't. Screw that.  We're only talking four heads here, not twelve loaves and fishes. Instead I decided to pickle them using a recipe I found in a Christmas present from my sister-in-law. It's curry based, and more importantly, I had all the ingredients on hand. Even though I knew that everything would turn out a yellow, I still went ahead and separated the heads by color.

 

The florets were not as crisp as the textbooks would tell you they should be, but I'm not pioneer woman and do the best I can with my hours. I ended up leaving the heads in the refrigerator a couple days before getting the time to can them. I had enough cauliflower for about three and a half pint jars.  I water-bathed three of them and put one in the refrigerator.

 The picture on the left is my attempt at being artsy. Click on it for the full effect!

 The finished product took on some distinctive coloring despite the curry and tumeric in the brine. Notice, as with all my pickled vegetables, that they are floating towards the top of the jar. I can't ever seem to get them to not float after processing. I pack those suckers as much as I dare for fear of breaking the glass jar with my hand in it, but they always soften a little under the heat and take off. The taste is fine but the look is hardly ideal.

(Another note: Cauliflower is a lot tougher to pack than green beans what with all the weird shapes and such.)

Because of the floating, these jars will never win at a county fair competition, but they still are pretty to me.

And for those of you keeping track at home, I told you I had six cauliflowers growing but only canned four. Well, we roasted one that was barely enough side for the two of us. As for the last contestant. Well, check out his picture on the right:

This green cauliflower, in the category of broccoflower, is a romanesco broccoli. He didn't start to rice like the other ones did with the short warm snap, so he'll get a special place on the dining room table this week.

Because cauliflowers only grow one head a season, it was time to pull the plants once the harvest was over. I composted them before later finding out that you could use the leaves and stems in vegetable broth.  Interesting! A project for next year's cauliflower experiment.