Port Potager

We’re a little behind the eight ball this year on the garden planning. Usually we start a new plot of all the vegetable beds on New Year’s Day (or very shortly thereafter). This year we only just got around to this, so we’re about three weeks behind schedule. Though that doesn’t seem like a big deal (we’re nowhere near planting seeds outdoors, after all), it puts us behind on ordering the seeds we need to start. Still, it’s hard to get too  worked up about it when the wind chill outside is just 10 degrees. Anyway, we finally did get our act together and lay out the plans, so here is the patio quadrant plan for the spring: On the left-hand side there is a long row of strawberries. Though we considered moving the strawberries to the other small fruit beds to replace our struggling cranberries , we ended up keeping them right here, where there’s much more room to devote to a crop that has been quite successful for us over the years. Provided everything survives the wint...

Last night we had a frost advisory, and while my gut reaction to it was that the air felt a smidge too humid for us to worry about it, we finished covering our greenhouse tunnels in plastic anyway. We also brought in the last of our summer fruits, just in case. Here's our forced harvest: A whole lotta green tomatoes. We are hoping for two pies out of these, plus some to fry up. (Still looking for a great recipe for fried green tomatoes, by the way. Our only previous attempt was less than exciting. If you have a great recipe, please comment.) We also have a row of tomatoes on the window sill that were starting to turn red, and they can continue to ripen indoors. We should have tomatoes that way for another couple of weeks, I think. We also brought in all of our butternut squash and our ripe pumpkins, although we left three on the vine but blanketed in row cover fabric while they continue to ripen from green to orange. This is by far the best we've ever done wit...

Temperatures are dropping, the wind is picking up, and our lovely maple is starting to put on an October show: Even so, summer isn't over until baseball ends for the season. And 'round these parts, that means when the Red Sox make their last out.  The day the baseball season ends is, for me, one of the most depressing days of the year. That's the day that summer is utterly, indisputably gone . No turning back from the onslaught of winter now. But it's not over! Grand   slams  abound, and the Sox are headed to the World Series. I'll be honest, all these late playoff-watching nights have left me more than a little sleep deprived, and the garden has gotten the bare minimum of our attention this October. Despite our benign neglect, the garden is still providing us with summery fruits and vegetables. Having not gotten the message that it's almost Halloween, there's still one zucchini plant producing, as well as tomatoes, raspberries, and ...

Over the weekend, we pulled and composted a lot of summer fruits and veggies that died back in the cooler weather and shorter days — standard operating procedure here for Columbus Day weekend. That included our watermelon vines. The vines were dead, and we brought in these remaining melons:  They are yellow-side up to dry out before we put them on the porch for cool storage. We've had great luck this year with our watermelon lasting a long time. We had last for several weeks in the fridge, even after it had been cut open. We're not in a huge rush to finish these, then, but if it comes down to it, we figured we could also process and freeze for a sorbet and/or drink base to enjoy in the winter. Anyway, these five watermelons, plus one in the house waiting to be eaten, plus two we gave away, plus one we served at Tiegan's birthday party equals a 2012 total of nine watermelons. If you count the one we harvested too early ; that's 10 watermelons for the year. ...

We've been lucky this year, in our first watermelon patch attempt, to have several good-sized melons coming in. Here are two pretty close to each other: They're a bit camouflaged in the leaves, and one is actually ripening on the bricks, as these vines spilled out of their beds.  We learned our lesson from our over-eager picking of one of the melons way too early. This time we are waiting for a brown, dried tendril where the melon stem attaches to the vine, and also a shriveled or missing leaf at that junction. That's the real test. Last weekend we were pretty sure we had a good one, so Kirk picked it during Tiegan's birthday party. A bit nerve-wracking with lots of eager guests, but he picked up a knife for the moment of truth: Ta-da! A perfect watermelon! All the kids at the party were as excited as we were (it's pretty cool to pick up a watermelon out of the patch and eat it on the spot, you know). Although you can't really tell fro...

Back on the first weekend of August we were so excited to see how big our watermelons were getting. We checked all the signs of ripeness: good sound, firm skin, yellow bottom. So Kirk brought one in: And we sliced it open: Shit. This is not meant to be a yellow watermelon. It only even looks that way in the photo because of the lighting — it's really white throughout. It's Sweet Favorite, and it's supposed to be red.  After the huge wave of disappointment rolled through the room, we all took a bite anyway.  It's not sweet, but it's not sour or bitter, either. It tastes like watermelon, just without the sugar. Kind of like a watermelon-flavored cucumber. It's too big to let go to waste, and we felt obligated to wrap it up and keep it in the fridge until we figured out something to with it.   Dish #1: Watermelon Kachumber Kachumber is an Indian salad that is normally made with cucumber. Here we used some of our unripe w...

Not all of our plants are struggling with the dry weather we've been having. Heat-loving melons are taking advantage: These are the leaves and a few blossoms of one of our cantaloupe plants. I took this photo the day we got back from New Jersey. I was inspired to grab the camera because all the leaves were ringed with tiny, perfect raindrops. We had never seen anything like it — it was really beautiful. These plants took off in the heat we had while we were on vacation, and we came back to much bigger vines and tons of small, yellow blossoms. We also spied our first melon:  It gets bigger every day, but it's still green. This is our first time out with cantaloupe, so I'm not sure how much longer we still have to go.  The watermelons also really spread out while we were away: Before we left, these were still fairly compact, but now they are vining and have blossoms as well. Yesterday afternoon I spotted our first watermelon: It is about t...

It started raining here Friday night, and it hasn't stopped yet. The weather radar shows the storm as already having moved out to sea, but it's still drizzling here in Newburyport. Back on Friday afternoon I quickly planted all the seeds on the schedule for this weekend to take advantage of the coming rain. In the ground and soaking are more corn and Brussels sprouts, plus new hills of cantaloupe and watermelon. I also had to replant almost all of our sunflowers and one of the borage plants — something pretty efficiently mowed the newly-emerged seedlings down. I didn't have time to cover them, but the first dry(ish) day we have, those things will get row covers to deter what I assume is the work of the chipmunks. I have to admit, getting to watch movies with the kids and take a four-hour nap instead of going like gangbusters outside all weekend has been a nice change of pace. My back is mostly better now, but this rain delay has probably been good for my aching body! A...