Port Potager

The equinox is just around the corner, and soon we will be heading toward the dark days. The chickens are molting rather then laying (Sally remaining our reliable exception, of course). The temperatures (especially in the early morning hours) are cooler, and though we are still several weeks away from frost, the garden has shifted from the lush greens and vibrant reds of high summer to the mellow golds and dusky purples of autumn. I am always sad to see summer go, but there are compensations. Our very small pumpkin patch has produced a good number of heirloom Long Pie pumpkins this year. The vines have died back almost completely, and the fruits are curing in the waning hours of sunlight. Hopefully they'll have time to ripen to orange before frost. Our Cherokee Trail of Tears beans are drying on the vines. They are a papery purple now, and I have been slowly picking them so we can shell them before frost. No rush on this project, though. They dry just as well on the ...

We're still working our way through zucchini this week, so we built dinner around it. Big zukes are perfect for this recipe, so we chose our two biggest, cut them in half lengthwise, and scooped out the seedy centers: Kirk rubbed olive oil on both sides of the zucchini and lightly salted the cut side. Then he put them out on the grill face down for 3-5 minutes (this part is directly over the coals).  When he flipped them back over, he moved them off to the side so they would be getting indirect (and less) heat. You could stuff these with anything at all, but we thought we'd make them like pizzas. We made one plain (just sauce and mozzarella) for Jonas, and the rest we also covered with roasted red peppers, olives, pepperoni, basil, and parmesan. Kirk put the lid of the grill to let the cheese melt for a couple minutes, and then they were done: Super easy, and they taste just as good as they look. (The charring around the edges is a good thing!) And I gue...

Last weekend I transplanted three tomatillo plants to the garden. They were looking really good: big, strong plants ready to take off out in the sunshine. Here's what we have left: Only the one on the right remains, and that one has been damaged pretty severely. The culprit? Cutworms. Their tell-tale destruction looks like this: Cutworms are the larvae of various moths. They overwinter in soil, and in the spring evenings they feed on the stems of new garden plants. They basically shear off the stem, eating a little bit near the ground and leaving the rest of the plant to die. I think I hate them most because they are so wasteful. At least a groundhog or  turkey has the decency to enjoy the whole vegetable . Some quick internet research revealed that there is such a thing as a turnip cutworm, and since we had turnips in this bed previously, I'm guessing that this is our particular pest. I noticed that some of the carrots we overwintered in this bed were ch...

Another crop coming into its own this week: beets! This is a couple four-foot rows' worth, but we also remembered that we had more back in our cold frame bed. Those are old and big, but we added them to the mix anyway. The big ones just got cut down into manageable pieces for roasting: I have to admit, I'm not the world's biggest beet fan, but I did have a bite of one of these raw, and it was very, very sweet, and not too earthy. Kirk roasted this batch up in the oven at 375 degrees for about an hour. He put them in a pan with a bit of water and covered it with foil. The water helps to avoid char beets  and gets gorgeous results like this: What to do with them now that they are ready? We turned them into a light, summer supper with more puff pastry magic: We're calling this a Red and Blue Tart: the beets are the red; the blue is crumbles of blue cheese on top. I love anything as a vehicle for blue cheese, but Kirk found it a little stron...

Midsummer means lots of color in our veggie garden: cucumber and squash blossoms, tomatoes and peppers ripening to all sorts of shades. There are purple snap pea blossoms, white bean blossoms, and yellow mustard flowers, too. While most of the flowers in the garden are just a precursor to the main event, others are edible in their own right. Here's what we have that looks good enough to eat: These are nasturtiums. The raw petals are really pretty in salads and have a peppery taste. These will keep going strong all summer, or at least until the aphids find them. We had some tonight mixed in with sautéed Swiss chard: As you can see, the petals kind of wilt and disappear in the heat. We added them late, but in the future it will be better to sprinkle them on top just before serving. Our chamomile is tiny this year, and just starting to bloom. The obvious use for these flowers is dried and used for tea, but they can also decorate desserts. Our bor...

We are finally finished dumping dirt into our raised beds! This is the last quadrant, and we wasted no time getting seeds into those beds once we were done filling them. This weekend marks our frost-free date, so it was time to get cracking on our planting and sowing. In the center "C" you can see our bamboo tepees (made by pulling apart an extra section of bamboo fencing we used for privacy at the Red House — glad to put them to good use!). Around each tepee are planted Cherokee Trail of Tears, an heirloom black bean that will climb those poles. In the squared off ends of the "C" are zucchini and nasturtium seeds as well. In the foreground of this bed are also mustard seedlings (too tiny to see, but they are in the rectangular section that is dark from having been watered). Our tomatillos are just off frame. Other seeds that went into the ground this weekend, now that we're pretty sure nothing will freeze: sunflowers, chamomile, and borage, plus...