Port Potager

Despite the cold, slow start to our spring, flowers are blooming all around us. Many of the flowers I've planted this year were selected for their scent in addition to how they look, and now it's clear that this was a great decision: Catching the scent of flowers on the breeze is one of the best parts of being outside in the springtime. Here's what's blooming now: Irises , which smell like violets. Actual violets (which, unsurprisingly, smell like violets). Chamomile , which smells like apples. Stock , which smells like cloves and baby powder (which is to say, they smell wonderful enough to make me break my rule against fuchsia flowers). A close-up of the white stock shows how nice they look, too. The lilac is a bit past its prime in the looks department, but still smells great. Sweet woodruff , which smells like vanilla and fresh-cut hay. Heliotrope , which smells sort of like grapes or fruit punch. ...

Remember the little shade garden outside of our screened-in porch? Last summer I planted some sweet woodruff, valerian, and lily of the valley in the shadiest part, and it all came up nicely this spring: This week I filled in the gaps between hosta plants in the partial shade sections with some sweet-smelling annuals:  The littlest ones in the front are white sweet alyssum . I have these stretching all along the front of this border. The taller plants behind them are stock , which look sort of like ruffled snapdragons and smell really nice: sweet, but also spicy like cloves. Here’s a close-up of one that’s starting to bloom: There are also some heliotrope in the mix (they’re the ones with the purple buds): The heliotrope is in the sunniest end of this border, and hopefully it will still be bright enough here once the maple tree leafs out. I also started some seeds in the gaps: evening-scented stock and sweet mignonette, both of which are o...

Last week I spent some serious time in the herb garden. It could use a renovation: some are now too shaded, others are garden bullies that have spread beyond their borders, etc. Even so, there was plenty to harvest. Here's what I walked away with: That's not everything we grow, but it is a sampling of what's doing well. Things like sage and rosemary will be better in the fall, but these are some of the herbs that are ready to go at the height of summer. Basil. I cut a lot  to avoid having it begin to flower and go to seed. Even with this giant pile, I still only ended up with eight pesto cubes . Luckily, a little bit goes a long way in the flavor department. Horehound. Those globes between the leaves are its flowers, so I may have cut this a bit too late for full potency. Horehound is a bitter relative of mint used to cure respiratory ailments, and I keep meaning to use it to make some homemade cough drops.  Tarragon. It's not worth dryi...

Back in May, I decided to revamp the little daffodil and hosta border in front of our three-season porch to be filled with more fragrant flowers. The idea here is that these plants are right outside the screened jalousie windows where the furniture is on our porch, so we could enjoy plants that smell nice right outside the windows. The challenge is that this area is also shaded by the sugar maple , which makes choosing flowers tricky. There are lots of leafy plants for shade, but not many flowers. Luckily, not all of the area is in darkness. The left is the shadiest; the right has more sun: So as you can see, I moved the hosta into the shady section, and set out a new hydrangea in the partial-sun portion. Hydrangeas don't smell like anything at all, but I love blue ones, and wanted to create a little vignette of my summertime favorites: blue hydrangeas, white daisies, and orange daylilies:  That should look better in the future when everything fills in and bl...

Remember last year when we made an experimental batch of dandelion wine ? It wasn't very good at all, probably due to our Appalachian-style fermenting methods (a ceramic crock and a towel). Still, we don't like to see anything go to waste, so we figured our moonshine-esque wine might be good (or at least palatable) mixed with something else in a cocktail. But what, exactly, makes a fine pairing with a fume-y, medicinal liquor of weeds? We needed help.  Enter the Iron Bartender Contest, which we hosted this weekend. We invited all of our most creative friends to concoct a drink using at least one ounce (a shot) of dandelion wine. Mixologists whipped up a drink, named it, and then got to taste all the drinks before voting for their three favorites.  And, oh my stars, did our friends ever step up to this challenge! People came with all kind of fruits, simple syrup, herbs, liquor, wine, teas, and tools. And they were remarkably undeterred from the challenge afte...

It's now a whole lot colder than it was during our lovely long weekend . In fact, the nights have been colder than expected – well, colder than predicted on the local news. I usually check out wunderground.com  for better local information. Wunderground is short for Weather Underground, which relies on "official" weather reports as well as lots of local observers.  When I say local, I mean really local. Newburyport has about four or five local stations to choose from; for example, Plum Island, Middle Street, and the Common Pasture. I usually rely on the Common Pasture results because it, like us, is located over the High Street ridge from the river and ocean, so we get some bigger temperature fluctuations – it’s just a little bit colder in the winter and a little bit warmer in the summer. For regular life, this is all probably more specific than necessary, but for the garden, it's super-helpful. For example, I can keep track of local rainfall amounts (so I k...

Today is my birthday, and this weekend I celebrated with a new drink. This is a traditional German drink, and in German it is known as Maiwein (May Wine in English). It is easy to make and uses the best-smelling herb in our garden: sweet woodruff. Here are a dozen sprigs of sweet woodruff after being dried in the oven. Drying it brings out all the flavor and aroma, so it's an important step. To do this, rinse off the herb and put it on a cookie sheet and into the oven on the lowest heat setting you can manage. The way you time it is by smell — when your kitchen starts to fill up with a fresh hay or vanilla scent, take it out. Step two: Add the dried woodruff to a bottle of Reisling. I recommend using one that's actually from Germany — the California ones I've had lately are way too syrupy-sweet. Reisling is sweet, but it doesn't have to taste like Kool-Aid. I used Clean Slate — inexpensive and quite good. Pour off some of the wine and add the sprigs of ...

Happy May Day! Here's what's blooming in celebration of spring: Our new sweet woodruff plants have opened up nicely. Both the tiny flowers and the leaves smell fantastic — a combination of vanilla and fresh-cut hay. May Day is the traditional time to cut and dry sprigs for sachets and May Wine, which I plan to get to tomorrow when the sun comes out. Also in full bloom are the lilacs along the driveway. These also smell wonderful. Usually these are just starting to open on May Day, but this year they are in full bloom — almost past their prime, actually. We can blame and/or thank the freakishly warm winter for that. The last blossoms we have are the tiny, bluish ones of Jacob's Ladder. These are on the opposite side of the driveway from the lilac, so there's a nice echo of the color from one side of the drive to the other.

Did I mention that we had absolutely gorgeous weather last week during April vacation? One thing I love to do is to stroll around nurseries looking at all the plants they have, and it was a lovely week to do it. We don't need many flowers (although I still like to look), but I was on the hunt for the perennial herbs we have planned for the back row with the grapes . Although I was sad to find that my heretofore favorite nursery is shutting down, I found a great new (to me) nursery in Haverhill that might be my new first stop on future plant hunts. Cottage Gardens  is a great little family-run place on the Haverhill/Merrimac line, and you should definitely check it out if you live in the area. They had lots of flowers, a solid culinary herb selection, and their prices are great . I quickly filled up a flat of four-inch pots, including …  The basil and cilantro I mentioned before . These will give us something to munch on while we wait for the seeds to pop up and beco...