Port Potager

Yesterday while Kirk was mowing the lawn , he accidentally flushed out a couple of creatures who jumped out the way to escape certain doom from the blades of the very loud machine. Kirk turned off the mower and took a peek under the cucumber vines. It wasn’t one, but two little animals getting out of the way. This baby bunny is very young. Last weekend it was still in its nest, which Kirk partially dug by accident while dealing with a weedy portion of the garden.  We have seen a couple rabbits in the yard all summer, and they’ve nibbled a few items — notably the beet tops. Mostly, though, they have only been interested in the big patch of clover growing on this year's fallow sections of garden. Since we no longer have an outdoor cat to take care of critters, this is a great way to peacefully coexist. We’ll probably plant a decoy clover section on some portion of the garden every year, especially now that we’re content to do slightly less intensive growing. Anyway,...

Insects aren't   our only problem  this season: we’ve also got some border enforcement issues: All of our butternut squash (above) has been nibbled on, as have our pumpkins and black beans (below): While these aren’t completely destroyed, the same can’t be said for our green beans: Also coming under heavy fire: sweet potatoes, cucumbers, Brussels sprouts, and lettuces — all of which are in the quadrants farthest from the house. We’ve seen a groundhog around as well as a skunk, and both are good suspects. The damage is all pretty dainty, though, and some of it was done by scurrying under a very small gap beneath the temporary (and ineffective) chicken daycare cage . We’re thinking rabbits running bold, thanks to a barn cat who is rather timid about hanging out in plain sight in the yard during the day (though he has left plenty of evidence of mice and bird kills — and is coming a little closer to us every day, so we remain hopeful). Anyway, it’s tim...

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...