Port Potager

Last week we started the process of trying to remove the giant wisteria root from the perennial border. You may recall that Kirk had taken an axe to it and we were letting it dry out a bit before trying to go after it some more with a one-two punch of hacking and spraying. During the week I attacked it with a product I found called Burn Out II. This is a herbicide that is made with clove and citrus oils, and if you spray it on a sunny day, it kills all the leaves of whatever you spray it on. And it smells great—like a clove orange at Christmas, if you've ever made one of those. I am really excited about this stuff, since we have an organic garden and aren't thrilled about spraying real Round-Up anywhere. I also looked at other herbicides, but they were even worse: wear a mask, don't use near children and dogs, etc. I know, I know: Burn Out II doesn't get to the root the way Round-Up is supposed to, but if you keep killing all the leaves, eventually the plant wil...

Now that we have at least one quadrant of the garden in plantable condition, working out in the garden feels kind of normal. Instead of gigantic building projects, there's just some regular maintenance. Don't get me wrong: there's still plenty of big, dirty digging projects and a whole boatload of cleanup to be done, but on an average Tuesday it is possible to make a loop around the beds to monitor progress, put in another succession planting, and pull a weed or two. This might, then, be a boring progress report, but it feels really great to be enjoying regular gardening again! Planting Seeds Last night we finished the last little bit of bed prep in the first quadrant, so today I was able to plant out the second cold frame. To make things easy, the planting scheme is exactly the same as in the first cold frame:  arugula, kale, mache, mustard greens, carrots, beets, turnips, mesclun, and spinach. These new seeds are about 10 days behind the first planting, which should h...