Port Potager

The big story of the end of the year is the weather; specifically, the frigid temperatures that we’ve been forced to endure for the past several days. It’s been a struggle to get out of the single digits this weekend, and the cold snap is expected to last well into the New Year. By the time it warms up again, we’re likely to have ridden out 12 days in which the highs didn’t crack 20 degrees. This arctic blast means that our carrots and parsnips are well and truly frozen underground, and all of our greens are probably done for. Even kale will struggle under cover with that type of deep freeze, though it will begin to put out new leaves as soon as it warms up a bit. I’m not sure about the leeks, but the underground bulb will probably be fine once we are able to dig them up again. In the meantime, we're staying inside as much as possible!

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It’s been a very difficult autumn for us this year, and I just haven’t had the time, energy or inclination to write much about the garden — or to actually do much in the garden. We’ve let a lot of things slide, and have only just gotten around to raking leaves and doing the general post-frost clean up today (even though said frost was almost a month ago now). We have, however, diligently done our duty for the living creatures here, including the bees. Somewhere around Halloween we got the hives ready for winter by closing up the extra entrances and protecting the remaining door with hardware cloth so mice can’t get in: We’re not at all sure that our hives have enough food stored to make it through the winter, even though both seem pretty strong. When our original hive swarmed over the summer , the ones that left ate all the honey in the original hive to be ready to make the journey. That meant that both the original hive and the new one were basically starting from scrat