Port Potager

Over the long Veteran's Day weekend, we had some really great weather. We took advantage, gathering up the last leaves and cleaning the garden beds of plants that had been killed by some cold nights. We also mulched our garlic: I planted these bulbs back in October , and most have sent up small shoots over the course of the past month: Last year we mulched our garlic with leaves from the fall clean-up, but this year we had a bale of straw from the Dodge Agway  that we had picked up for the chickens. This was back when they weren't using their nesting boxes very well, and we thought we could entice them with nicer bedding. Now they just scratch it all onto the floor of the henhouse, so screw 'em. We also used it to mulch over the strawberries: This, by the way, is exactly the reason we call them straw berries in the first place. Straw is the traditional mulch to protect the crowns from freezing, since they are close to the surface of the soil. W...

A record-breaking warm day today (70 degrees here!) meant that I could get outside to remove all the leaf mulch from the garlic and perennial border. The leaves from our fall clean up were held down with some extra netting, which itself was held down by various rocks and brick offcuts. This worked remarkably well, and everything stayed in place throughout the winter. It was also effective. I scooped up the leaves to reveal moist, black earth and garlic shoots that look like they suffered almost no dieback from the cold. In most cases here we're looking at last year's leaves instead of new shoots: Just about every single one has survived. It looks like there might be a little loss in the center of that square that caps off the "C," but there may be hope for new shoots. The "Early Italian" variety in the center seems to have done slightly less well based on size and condition, but we'll see how it does as it grows. The problem with the l...

Looks like I made the right call by refusing to rake leaves until they had all  fallen. That decision was not only more efficient, but it also set us up to take our time with the fall clean-up over the long holiday weekend, and it let us do it in the comfort of temperatures in the mid-60s. It was a little disorienting to feel like three seasons were mixing together, but it was way more enjoyable than it usually is. We have taken down several trees since we moved in, but we still have a gigantic maple in the front yard. This tree manages to dump leaves absolutely  everywhere , so raking is a pretty big job (there are two other deciduous trees in the back that contribute too, but nowhere near the way the big one does). It's good to have lots of help: The kids did a lot of jumping, but they also stood on the tarp to hold it down while Kirk pushed the leaves onto it. Then everyone grabbed a corner to lug the pile to the back. This was repeated several times. While that w...