Port Potager

We made our garden plan back in February, but I forgot to document it. I was reminded of this when we pulled out the plan to actually start planting. It hasn’t been warm — it’s snowing as I write this — but the ground has thawed and we can get started with our hardiest cool-weather plants. The leeks we ordered came in the mail, so we had to get them in the ground. We bought transplants instead of doing them from seed this year, and they are about as big around as a pencil — much bigger than the tiny strings we’ve managed to get starting them on our own. These are much easier to work with, and I’m certain they’ll have a better survival rate than our tiny seedlings, so this looks to be a good investment. Behind the cold frame you can see a few of last year’s leeks — these are the stragglers we haven’t harvested yet. Usually when we plant in March, we’re out of luck when it comes to compost. That’s because the City Yard doesn’t open until April and our pile is usually frozen....

We eat a lot of homemade pizza throughout the year, but it’s always fun when a new ingredient is ready to harvest to shake things up a little bit.  This very green springtime pizza features a garlic béchamel sauce , asparagus, spinach and feta. It’s also garnished with lovage and some pea shoots, all from the garden (except the feta, of course). This is a great way to enjoy our earliest garden harvest of asparagus and leafy greens. I don’t think Jonas was wild about it, but we also had plenty of regular tomato sauce pizza for him, too. We’re down to our final jar of sauce now, so he might want to get on board with white pizza for the next couple months until we have some more tomatoes. (Ordinarily we don’t run out, but the drought really kept our yields down last summer).  If you’re looking for something different in your pizza repertoire, give this one a try!

The section of the garden near the swings is always on the easiest to plan. It’s reliably sunny, but two large swathes are already spoken for, with asparagus along the left side and grapes and herbs across the top.  To the right will be Brussels sprouts and a row of fennel bulbs, along with a large bed of leeks, which hopefully do better this year. Along the bottom is a trellis of peas and a row of Amish paste tomatoes for saucing.  In the center C are beets, chard, okra, and potatoes.  And that’s it! This section is full of big plants, or big patches of some of our favorites, so it’s just not very complicated — which is a nice change of pace.

Working our way around the garden, we come to the workshop quadrant. I guess we could also call this the office quadrant, since it forms the bulk my view during the day. Here’s what I’ll be gazing out at when I’m procrastinating: In the center C are celery and parsley, zucchini, cantaloupe, and a Sungold tomato plant. The Sungold, celery, and parsley are partially shaded, which should be fine. It should help slow the ultra-prolific Sungold down to a manageable harvest level, and celery and parsley will do well with some shade in the summer anyway. Across the top, as always, are our perennial grapes and herbs. In the upper portion of the right side is a succession planting of dill. This is the shadiest section of the garden, but dill is basically a weed and will do fine here. Below that is a semi-shaded section that will lie fallow for most of the season until we plant next winter’s spinach and mache in a cold frame. Across the bottom is a long trellis of peas and a r...

The final quadrant of our planning for the upcoming growing season is the one nearest to the driveway: Along the top is a long trellis of peas, which is on the northern end of the bed so as not to shade the zucchini and annual herbs grown in the rest of the area (basil, fennel, parsley, and celery). To the right is another 27-foot trellis of peas. We don't usually orient them this way, but since it's to the east, we are confident that the Roma tomatoes behind it will get enough afternoon sun. The peas will also be gone by July, well before we expect to harvest any tomatoes anyway. Along the bottom are crops that can handle a bit of shade from the house as fall comes. Here we have another zucchini plant, summer carrots, beets, mesclun lettuce for the summer, and a short trellis of snap peas. We also have a block marked out for something new: cauliflower. I have never been a big fan, though my distaste has probably always had more to do with the whiteness of the wh...

Usually by this time of year, our pea vines are long gone. We typically pick garden peas through mid-July, and the vines turn brown and die back as temperatures rise. We've never had much luck replanting them in the fall, so we usually just freeze a year's worth of peas in the spring and call it a season by the end of July. You can see the die-back starting here: But…what's that bit of green down there at the bottom? Let's take a closer look: New growth on the old vines! This has never happened to use before—maybe because we pulled out the vine before they had a chance to get to this stage? I'll be honest: that's exactly what I was planning to do when I noticed the new growth. There's even a pea pod or two! So to see this unbidden (but welcome) experiment through, I clipped the old vines just above the new growth and threw them in the compost pile. I left the new growth behind to see how big they'll get, and if we'll get a sec...

Despite everything that has made this spring kind of sucky, we have managed, as we somehow always to do, to have food. The rains came, the sun shone, and we are finally in the eating season. Do they give prizes for broccoli? This might be the best head ever. Now we just need to find time to cut it and eat it (or freeze it ) before it blows open in the heat. Timing is everything. The peas are filling out their pods, and are super sweet. We've managed to stay on top of picking them for freezing, but I'm hoping to enjoy some fresh as well. Our snap peas are doing really well this year. These are a variety called "Shiraz," which we like because it's so easy to see them among the vines for harvesting. They aren't quite as sweet as green ones, but when you eat them young, they're great. We had trouble getting the lettuces started, but now we have a bed of really beautiful butter crunch and romaine heads. Almost too pretty to eat! ...

Something magical happened last weekend. Tiegan got a cookbook out at the library on Saturday morning and announced that she would be preparing dinner on Sunday. She did, and it was delicious. Check out her adaptation of a chicken pot pie from The Children's Baking Book by Denise Smart. Making the Pie 1. I made a creamy sauce with butter, flour, chicken stock, milk, sour cream, and spices. I chose salt, pepper, and dried savory and oregano from the garden. 2. I cooked the chicken in a frying pan with some oil and chopped onions. They made me cry a lot. 3. I mixed the cooked chicken, frozen peas , and frozen corn into the sauce.  4. I divided the mixture into four individual pie dishes and let it cool for a little bit. 5. I cut out puff pastry circles and put them over the dishes.  6. I put them in the oven for 20 minutes at 400 degrees. The original recipe had ham in it and no corn, but everybody enjoyed it anyway. It wasn't too har...

Finally! A weekend warm enough to get outside and dig in the dirt!  You may recall that last weekend the weather was terrible, our soil was still partially frozen, and we weren't able to adhere to our original planting schedule. Well, in a week's time the crocuses have bloomed and the soil has warmed (well, most of it, anyway). Because we had some catching up to do, our first weekend outside was a big one. Here's the run down of all the stuff we did. 1. Uncovered the fig tree: Back in the fall we stacked potato boxes around the fig tree  and filled them with leaves to protect the tree from the cold and wind. As you can see, the leaves kept the shape of the box. I guess we'll see in a few weeks how the tree fared as it leafs out again. Despite some droopy branches, there's at least one bud on it that looks ok so far, and if it made it through this harsh if a winter, I think it'll be a keeper. 2. Lots of garden bed prep. This means turn...

Although it is much warmer this weekend that it has been — dare I suggest that winter has finally loosened its grip? — we weren't able to make much headway out in the garden. It just would be too much to hope for to jump right into a sunny, 60 degree stretch of days, right? We're squarely in the midst of some cold, soaking rain. Not that I'm complaining. After all, it's not snow. The rain has washed away almost all of our last bits of the white stuff, and I imagine the rest will be gone by Monday. Things are starting to thaw, and the soaking rains will definitely help bring things back to life as we ring in April. We did manage to get our week's worth of sap boiled and also opened up the cold frames to catch some of that free water falling from the sky (before closing them up again to protect delicate seedling and as-yet unsprouted seeds from the downpours we're meant to get over night and tomorrow). Still, we had to give up on our planned planting of ...

Ok, so the kids weren't all that psyched about tonight's dinner until I reminded them of this: Justin Timberlake - Cup O Soup by tony0413 Then they got on board. Anyway, you shouldn't need any convincing to be excited about this dinner: Kirk made a chicken barley soup and some sage rolls, and it was all delicious — perfect for an icy-cold day between snowstorms. Chicken Barley Soup 3 chicken breasts 2 stalks of celery 3 leeks 6 small parsnips 1 Tbs. peppercorns 1 lemon dried herbs 1-2 Tbs. olive oil 2 large turnips 3/4 cup barley 8-10 sundried tomatoes  1/2 cup frozen peas salt and pepper to taste To make the quick stock, fill a large stockpot with 3 quarts of water, 3 chicken breasts, plus a stalk of celery, 2 leeks (cut into large chunks), 6 small parsnips, 1 Tbs. crushed peppercorns, 1/2 a lemon, and a handful of dried herbs of your choice (we used sage and thyme).  Bring to a boil, then simmer for 1 hour....

I know, I know. How can I be thinking about frost on a day, during a week like this ? It's so hot that the ice rink down the street can barely keep it together for skating classes. Still, our average first frost date is October 15, and that's just 90 days from today. That all seems very far away until you start reading the backs of seed packets. When some of your cabbages take 90 days to mature, and your broccoli is looking at 75 days, it's time to get fall planting plans underway. If you care about eating once it gets cold and dark, that is. Our peas have just finished for the season, and over the weekend we pulled out the trellises to make room for some fall crops. Ditto on the garlic, which is harvested and curing in the workshop. That leaves us space to get cracking on our fall plantings, most of which I sowed over the past couple of days: I realize that empty dirt isn't all that exciting to look at, but that's where the action is. In ...

The long, cool, rainy stretch we had this June was just right for the peas, and now they are ready to harvest. This week I picked the first round of pods: The photo really isn't doing justice to the gorgeous green color that these are in real life. These beautiful, long pods are all "Penelope" peas that we got from Johnny's . They are plump and sweet, and just about every pod is perfectly filled: We've never had such beautiful peas. The big pods contain big peas, and that goes a lot farther than harvests of smaller peas we've had in the past: It's hard to tell in the picture, but this is a full serving bowl of peas — enough for probably eight people to have a big scoop at dinner. That's a lot, considering that it represents only a small portion of the pods still waiting to be picked (I was interrupted in my harvesting by lightning and will have to gather the rest another afternoon). After blanching and freezing those pea...

What a gorgeous day to be in the sunshine, picking veggies and fruit for dinner! Thanks to my car being in the shop, I had a preview of summer vacation today, and it was lovely. As are the pickings: Today I brought in strawberries, peas (unshelled in the photo), asparagus, a few snap peas, and broccoli.  To these items Kirk added some fresh pasta and a creamy Parmesan sauce: A delicious pasta primavera! Minus the strawberries, of course. These we snacked on during the afternoon, and the kids polished the rest off for dessert. Maybe next time I can hide some to save for more strawberry ice cream .

Yesterday I walked through the garden and realized that we have more to harvest now than just salad greens and rhubarb. Those things are great and all, but look what I found: Chamomile flowers are ready be picked. These should last all summer long, and eventually I should have another nice, big jar of them to use for tea and some cosmetic purposes. Our first few strawberries are just another sunny day away from being ready to eat. This one is a little pink on the bottom, and still a little too firm — but we're close to having fruit! I am most excited of all that some of our peas are ready. The ones here in the photo are a couple days away from being ready to pick — the pods are are still flat on one end. I was able to pick a bowl full of fully ripe pea pods, though, which I shelled. They made a nice, surprise addition to dinner: Kirk made a curry with Swiss chard, chicken, and the peas. There is also cilantro on top — another herb that's big en...

This past weekend was so lovely — sunny and (for March in New England) warm. Nothing at all like today, where we're struggling to stay at 40 degrees, and with a gusty windchill that's back into the 30s. We're also going to have lows in the 20s tonight, all of which sets back my hardening off schedule for the cabbage and broccoli seedlings that should be planted next weekend. So let's look back on a nice day instead of thinking about this cold one, shall we? After adding compost to the beds we needed, we were ready to go with three varieties of peas (Premium Nat, Penelope, and Sugar Snap). The tape measure was to keep us on track to plant them every six inches; the garden plan to remind us where we want to put them. Loving the smaller-scale garden plan this year — much more convenient. Once we got the trellises up (Kirk had to build some more, by the way, since the rose trellis-turned-pea brush schemes last year didn't work out too well), I set...

Bad news: We're almost out of sweet potatoes. We had a great, big harvest  and ate a whole lot of them over the past several months. We have one big one left for a curry this week, but the rest got mushy in storage. The ones we lost were all ones that were small and more like sweet potato strings than actual potatoes, so it wasn't that terrible of a loss. Still, it gave us pause. We are out of all types of potatoes and onions now, and the last of the cabbage is dwindling in the fridge. We were starting to worry about our No Buying Veggies Challenge as we head through the lean months of February and March.  Then this happened: Homemade noodles (thanks, pasta maker!) with peas (from the freezer), carrots, leeks, and cabbage (from the winter garden) sauteed in sesame oil and some soy sauce. It was so, so good. And fresh and green! And orange.  This made us feel much better about our No Buying Veggies Challenge, at least for now. We still have some e...

Last weekend we had friends over for grilling, and of course we served up lots of garden veggies. In addition to snap peas and love dip , Kirk also baked up some vegetable tarts. These were super easy with some store-bought puff pastry. All he did was roll out the pastry dough into squares and roll up a bit around the edges for a little crust frame. Then he spread filling on top and baked for a bit in the oven — those directions are on the box. The more interesting part is the filling (well, it's more like a topping, since there's no top shell). The ones on the left are spinach and goat cheese tarts. These were made by layering slices of goat cheese onto the pastry, then covering that with cooked spinach and Swiss chard (the colorful stems looked nice chopped into the otherwise dark green mixture). I think he also added a bit of garlic in with the cooked spinach as well. The ones on the right were made with garden peas (left whole) mixed with cream cheese, chives...

I've written about the process of freezing peas before, but it's worth a look back to compare the volume of peas from last fall to the amount we have now. Our pea vines got off to a very slow start this spring, and even though they still aren't all that tall, all of their energy seems to be going into pods. Last night we went out and picked a giant basket and shelled them (which took two adults and one child about an hour to do). Today I blanched and froze them. A small refinement to our process: instead of just dumping the peas directly into the bag, we added the step of freezing them on a cookie sheet. This helps keep them separated instead of freezing into one big ball. You do have to use a spatula to pry them off the cookie sheet, but it's worth the extra iota of effort. Here's a day's worth of harvesting this time around: Now that's from 54 row feet of peas, which is a lot more than the 13 we had last fall, but even so, the plants are al...