Port Potager

This year, for the first time, we started celery and parsley from seed . That was back in February. Here's where we are today: Looking good, right?  Alas, I cannot take credit for the sudden lush growth of our celery and parsley seedlings. These are all transplants that we had to go out and buy to replace our pitiful ones. So what happened? Well, for starters, celery and parsley are notoriously difficult to start from seed. We managed a quick germination, but from there on it was very, very slow growth. They were still super-tiny in April , and died shortly after I planted them outside in early May. I'm not exactly sure what happened. We've been dealing with cutworms big-time this month, so that's a possibility. We also had some critter issues this spring. Fletch dispatched with a couple rabbits, and Kirk took out a groundhog with a lucky throw of a baseball bat (there's actually more to it than that, but I'm going to spare you there Gam...

Although we were very good about fencing the cabbages this year to protect them from hungry skunks and groundhogs, it turns out something else has been eating away at them: See the way those leaves are clipped off right at the bottom? At first I wasn't sure what was going on, because of the insect damage further up the leaf, but that nibbling at the bottom is a classic sign of cutworms. We have dealt with them before , and there's just nothing more disheartening than watching your tiny transplants (especially ones you raised from seed over the winter) get mowed down overnight.  Half of our winter cabbages were beyond saving:  As you can see, I suspected cutworms earlier, and used a yogurt cup with the bottom cut out as a ring around it to keep the worms at bay. That was too little, too late for this plant, though. Time to try a more drastic remedy before we lose all of the cabbages. First, we dug up our remaining plants and temporarily moved them to an un...

This spring we tried a few new things to keep our crops safe from animals and insects that would like to swipe more than their fair share. One promising idea was using plastic fruit containers to keep squirrels away from our ripening tree fruits. But after all of our blustery days of downpours this month, most of those containers ended up on the ground: I wouldn't mind just snapping them back in place, but the real problem is that they often brought the fruit down with them. I'm not sure if this is a flaw in the system overall, or more of an issue with apricots being kind of delicate in hanging on the tree (at least, this has been true for us — it's not the first time we've accidentally knocked one off the branch before it was ripe).  Alas, the only one we have left on the tree is this one that never made it into a container in the first place. I thought about removing the remaining containers last weekend, but decided to ride out the experiment instea...

Ugh. These bastards: Earlier this spring we had problems with cutworms in our tomatillos. Now we have discovered that they are in the tomatoes and leeks as well. We lost a couple of our tomato transplants, so I got busy making more collars. We quickly ran out of the toilet paper and paper towel rolls we held onto after the tomatillo issues , so I grabbed the only cardboard-y thing we had lying around the house: Manila file folders. And you know what? They're  perfect  for this job. Here's what you do: Cut the folder in half down the center (on the existing fold). Then cut your paper-sized piece of folder in thirds the short way. This is a piece of cake to eyeball if you use folders with tabs that are 1/3 the length of the folder (as you can see above). Next, roll it up and staple it together. Three times is just right. Make a bunch. It goes pretty fast, even if your kids won't help you out (ahem). Apply to your vulnerable plants. T...

Last weekend I transplanted three tomatillo plants to the garden. They were looking really good: big, strong plants ready to take off out in the sunshine. Here's what we have left: Only the one on the right remains, and that one has been damaged pretty severely. The culprit? Cutworms. Their tell-tale destruction looks like this: Cutworms are the larvae of various moths. They overwinter in soil, and in the spring evenings they feed on the stems of new garden plants. They basically shear off the stem, eating a little bit near the ground and leaving the rest of the plant to die. I think I hate them most because they are so wasteful. At least a groundhog or  turkey has the decency to enjoy the whole vegetable . Some quick internet research revealed that there is such a thing as a turnip cutworm, and since we had turnips in this bed previously, I'm guessing that this is our particular pest. I noticed that some of the carrots we overwintered in this bed were ch...