Category: Garden

According to legend, this rhubarb plant, which was given to my by my mother, is part of a plant which was given to her by my father’s mother, who also received it from someone else in the family.  I guess this plant goes way back.  I’m not sure if if qualifies as “heirloom”, but it’s certainly an elder.

At the time, I stuck it in a pot, because I hadn’t installed a garden for it.  Still, it seems very happy, so Liz decided to experiment with a rhubarb crisp recipe.  I find the phrase “You can’t have your cake and eat it too” to apply to my garden.  I watched as she chopped away and reduced the plant to a few stubs.  Sigh.

No matter.  It’s already growing new leaves.  As for the crisp, the conclusion was that it was good but a little too sweet.  I expect there will be future recipe refinements as the plant grows back.  Even so, it was so good that I failed to get a photo of the final dish before it was gone.

How long will a rhubarb plant live?  Aren’t we just essentially cloning it?  It has to be at least a century old.  I wonder.

–Simon

Volunteer plants are always fun.  Nature has done the selection process for me.  I don’t have to cull or deal with failed germination–just transplant and be rewarded with a hardier stock, already more adapted to my specific micro-climate.  I mentioned these plants previously, but now I have actual fruit.

I still don’t seem to be having major problems with the vine borers either, so maybe everything’s happily maintaining in symbiosis.  I’ve also been pretty generous with the nitrogen additives, given through foliar feeding, which has yielded giant leaves, resembling tropical undergrowth.

I have two promising jack aspirants:

–Simon

I realize of course that it’s a little silly to get excited about mint growing well, but look at the size of this sprig:

And this was only one of several sprigs that Liz cut, as it was starting to crowd the rest of the herb garden.  And so, faced with the conundrum of too much mint, what should we do?  It would be a shame to waste it.

If you know anything about me, then you probably already figured out what happened.  Hehe–MOJITOS!  Some classics are eternal for a reason.

–Simon

If you recall, this is the experimental gardening year, and from the seed vault I have planted a pickling cucumber vine, and despite the presence of vine borers, it appears to be doing very well.

I came back from Wisconsin to see these guy on the vine.  As they were not normal cucumbers, I was uncertain when to pick them.  A quick Google search revealed that they could be picked at any time, so I guess they don’t suffer as much from bitterness if they get bigger?  Liz also concluded that they were ready, so I was convinced.  She also referred to them as “salad cucumbers”, so I presumed she had some prior experience with the variety.

I found them pleasantly very crunchy, and milder than I expected.  They didn’t have that strong cucumber-y aftertaste.  They’re also very prolific.  I anticipate a future experiment with homemade pickles.

–Simon