Port Potager

It feels like much, much longer ago, but about three weeks ago , I broke off many of the leaves on our Brussels sprouts plants to encourage the buds to fill out to an edible size. I also fertilized, watered, and gave a little love to these plants. The only other thing we did for them between then and now is added a hoop house over them to keep them from freezing and to try to encourage them to grow, even though the season really ought to be over. Our Brussels sprouts were nowhere near ready for Thanksgiving dinner, so we bought some from Tendercrop . As a point of comparison, here's what they look like when grown by people who know what they are doing: And here's what ours looked like as of today: Not at all impressive, although a few are plumping up here and there. the best ones are on the small stalk that I accidentally beheaded while pulling the leaves off a few weeks ago: Looking at this one — the one that I was pretty sure would die without any leaves...

Today turned out to be pretty warm, although it began at a frosty 29 degrees Fahrenheit. For readers abroad (and according to my stats, I have readers in Russia and Germany, as well as old friends in other far-flung places!), that's about -2 degrees Celsius. That left my newly de-foliated Brussels sprouts looking unhappy, and when I went out to get a closer look, their leaves were definitely frosted over. So I took a page out of the Farmer Boy playbook and poured water over the frosted plants while they were still well shaded early in the morning. That melted the frost off before the sun hit them, and they seemed no worse for wear as the day went on. So while we mull over whether or not to get those Brussels sprouts under some greenhouse tunnels of their own, let's take a peek at some of the things we do have in there. We opened them up today to get some air circulation going to let the plants dry out a bit — some of our cilantro was a little slimy after being closed up. Th...

I am a spirit of no common rate; The summer still doth tend upon my state; And I do love thee: therefore, go with me; I'll give thee fairies to attend on thee, And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep, And sing while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep; And I will purge thy mortal grossness so That thou shalt like an airy spirit go. Peaseblossom! Cobweb! Moth! and Mustardseed! Enter PEASEBLOSSOM,  COBWEB, MOTH, and MUSTARDSEED PEASEBLOSSOM Ready. COBWEB And I. MOTH And I. MUSTARDSEED And I. ALL Where shall we go? TITANIA Be kind and courteous to this gentleman; Hop in his walks and gambol in his eyes; Feed him with apricocks and dewberries, With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries; The honey-bags steal from the humble-bees, And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes, To have my love to bed and to arise; And pluck the wings from Painted butterfli...

I posed this riddle in my previous post . While there have been a bunch of hits, there weren't too many guesses (but a shout out to a few intrepid blogger and facebook commenters!). So, here are three hints: 1. I used to be an English teacher. 2. The answer doesn't require much gardening expertise beyond plant recognition. 3. If the whole plant recognition thing is tripping you up, see the nice new captions I added below each photo. How are these four items in our garden connected? peas mustard greens spiderweb cabbage moth Answer in the comments section, and the first person who gets it wins a prize. I'm thinking a jar of sauerkraut if our cabbages keep doing well. I've got a strong Pennsylvania Dutch strain in my veins, so we're talking the real deal. C'mon, give it a try!

The weather this week has been just gorgeous, so it has been a pleasure to go out each morning and make a loop around the winter veggies to pull stray weeds, keep seedlings watered, and to get the lawn sprinklers going. Oh, and I have a new job during that walk-about as well. Since the earthquake didn't manage to shake these guys off, I have to pick the cabbage loopers off all the plants they are eating. This one is on a cabbage seedling. If you're having trouble seeing him, I am too. They are ever-so-cleverly the exact same color as the leaves of all plants in the cabbage family: cabbage, broccoli, brussels sprouts, etc. To make it even harder, they are very often right in the center of the leaf along the vein, and they are well-camouflaged there because they look like a continuation of that. That's where this one is, in case you haven't put your contacts in yet today. He's right below the giant holes chewed in the leaves. If a few tiny holes were the only...

After a lovely day at the beach on Plum Island, I went out to weed and thin our first plantings . Guess what? There were enough leaves from the seedlings I had to pull out for an honest-to-God salad! Here's what I saved from the thinning: On the left is lettuce; on the right is bok choy. That's kind of a weird salad ingredient, but it was small and tender. There's more: On the left is arugula; on the right is beet greens (with the red stems) and turnip greens (with white/purple stems). We decided to mix it all together for a micro-green salad for dinner. Kirk topped the salad with the world's easiest dressing: lemon zest, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and olive oil. No mixing or measuring — just squeeze or sprinkle or drizzle on and toss.  It's really light and fresh, and perfect when your veggies already taste good. The finished product: This was delicious and satisfying … right up until I noticed part of it was crawling around my plate. Even though ...