Port Potager

When we closed down the garden a couple weekends ago , I forgot to mention that we also pulled some beets. Throughout the fall we had mostly been using the beets for salad greens (their red stems are pretty, and they offer a different flavor), but we pulled the roots of all that were left. You may also recall that we had a fire to warm us while we worked outside that January day: So what could be better than roasted beets? Kirk washed them off, wrapped them in foil, and tucked the packet in among the smoldering bits of wood that had fallen through the grate in the fire bowl: As you can see above, this was hardly a great, roaring fire. The beets were added near its end, and it had died down to mostly coals rather than flames while the beets were roasting. Kirk figured we'd let the fire burn out, and he'd grab the foil packet later in the afternoon when it had cooled (so as not to worry about burning his fingers or having to find any of our old fireplace tools). Resu...

Thus sometimes hath the brightest day a cloud; And after summer evermore succeeds Barren winter, with his wrathful nipping cold: So cares and joys abound, as seasons fleet. ~Henry VI, Part II, Act 2, scene 4 Today we went out to close down the garden for the winter. Why, you ask, did we not take care of this yesterday, when it was a sunny 50 degrees outside? Because we were hungover, that's why. So today, as temperatures just kept dropping, we lit a fire and got to work. Tomorrow night it's supposed to get down to single digits, so this is it for the 2011 garden. As you can see above, Kirk pulled out our arugula cold-hardiness experiment . He did manage to salvage many perfectly fine leaves — mostly new growth low to the ground. Down came the tunnels around the broccoli that we salvaged after the last big winds uncovered the tunnels and let them freeze. We packed away the PVC and the plastic for next year, when we'll have something much sturdier design...