Port Potager

This weekend marks the first time in Newburyport that we've been able to take a stroll around the garden before making the grocery list to plan our dinners (or at least side dishes) around what is growing. Here's what we saw and what we decided to make with it. Radishes and Lettuce Our first radishes are ready to go. We didn't plant that many because in the past we've ended up with way more than we could ever eat, but a few are nice — especially since they come up so quickly. We use them as a row marker between two rows of carrots, and when the radishes are ready, the carrots are big enough to be thinned out. This row of mesclun is one of several rows of lettuce around the garden. This was planted later, but is ready to eat sooner than the lettuces in the background, because it's just a leaf lettuce. The ones in the back are our butterhead and redleaf, which take longer to mature because they are head lettuces. If you look really closely, you can see...

Hurricane Irene turned out not to be a very big deal for us. The power flickered maybe 3 times but stayed on; the cable went out for a couple hours on Sunday and again this morning. During the storm, Kirk had to run outside during a break in the rain (yes, we had breaks in the rain here on the North Shore) to stake one of our peach tree that had developed a worrisome  Torre di Pisa  quality to it. The only thing we had lying about to use as a stake was this bamboo pole. It is one of several leftovers that were part of privacy fence sections we used in the Red House. I really like the way it looks, and am now wondering if they will be strong enough for permanent use. Today (as you can see in the photos) is just gorgeous, and when I went out into the brilliant blue and sunshine, this is what I found in the garden: Some maple leaves blew onto the patio and into the garden beds. And … A branch came down. This is a four-foot path, so that should give you an idea o...

After prepping for Irene , the last thing I did as it started to rain (after calling the kids home from the neighbors' house) was clip a few stems of basil to bring into the house. We popped then into a glass of water to keep them fresh, which should last a few days — certainly longer than the hurricane. The dishes that follow aren't exactly the world's most creative uses for basil, but there's no need to get super-fancy with a great fresh ingredient. Besides, we were expecting a hurricane, not hosting a dinner party. Anyway, here's what we did with the basil this weekend: Friday: Tarted Up Frozen Pizza I hate grocery shopping on a good day, so Friday's trip to Market Basket was extra-special horrible, packed as it was with slightly panicked hurricane shoppers. After that, I wasn't about to actually cook dinner too, as that is another task I am iffy about (in case you haven't picked up on it from previous posts, Kirk is the chef of the family). Inste...

So we heard it might be a little breezy this weekend and thought it would be a good idea to clean up around the yard. Since we're still well within the middle of this massive garden project, there were a lot of things outside to pick up. Lots of things went back into the garage: the sprinklers and hoses, the wheelbarrow, loose boards that we had used to hold down plastic sheeting, and various odds and ends (planters, buckets, etc.). Also inside went the grill, although if (more like when) we lose power, we may need to pull it back out to cook. We also used some of the leftover pallets to hold down the tarp over the piles of sand and compost in the driveway. Hopefully that works and the pallets are heavy enough to stay at least on our property, because we'd like to reuse them to make a series of new compost bins in the fall. Another part of the Hurricane Irene prep was cutting some flowers in the perennial border. The phlox, for instance, would definitely get the shit kicked...