Not so great expectations

daphne on May 25, 2009

So it looks like I planted the spinach a little too late.   And the lettuce.  And the cucumbers were perhaps to fragile as tiny sprouts to withstand my man-handling of them into the garden.  Either way, as far as veggies go so far, looks like I missed the boat.

The boat I was trying to catch runs on an extremely complex tide table.  Here’s the thing– I want a couple of productive harvests this summer.  The first should come in right about  June 10th, and then I’d like another healthy haul near the middle of August.   All I’m asking is that the sprouts take a nice siesta for the six weeks that we will be gallivanting about the country, cruising up and down the coast and then soaking in sunny Des Moines while our Jr. Olympian breaks all sorts of jump-roping records.

Too much to ask?  Maybe for the leafy greens, but the raspberries and rhubarb seem game.  Ditto the strawberries, which are producing fruit in a frenzy.

The potatoes, a first attempt for us, are also good with our game-plan.  The plants are sturdy and beautiful, and from what I hear they are content to hide out underground through the hideous heat of July.

In the vegetable’s favor, I did fall in the tomato patch, and that spill seems to be paying off.  There is a sprinkling of healthy looking sprouts of unknown origin coming up in a haphazard sneeze.  Cucumbers from a spilled seed packet? Squash from un-composted seeds?  Only time (or a more seasoned gardener than I) will tell…

I’ve come around to the fact that we most likely will not get to eat any home-grown greens before we hit the road. I’m really ok with it, especially since all the ingredients for summer desserts (cobblers, pies, crumbles) are returning on their own in spades.

My garden may not bend to any artificially imposed time table, but at least it shares my main philosophy:  Life is Short.  Eat/grow dessert (plants) first.

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And the fun with bugs continues.  Here’s a gratuitous picture:

Girls And Their Roly-Polies

Your Rockin’ Rhubarb Resource

daphne on May 18, 2009

Despite a decidedly rocky start with rhubarb, I have made a remarkable comeback. Even though I was deceived as a child into believing that my beloved frozen strawberries were in fact rhubarb (and therefore off limits,) I have now gotten to a point where things with scary names aren’t intimidating.  Well, except kohlabi.  Anyone in their right mind would be terrified of kohlrabi.   Any-whoo, back to my personal growth.  I am so totally mature.  I not only grow rhubarb, but I harvest and eat the stuff too.  I’ve even been crowned Her Majesty the Rhubarb Poobah (note: position is self-appointed.)

Yes, I am the proud tender of a healthy crop of rhubarb, the successful propagator of little rhubarbarinos, and the baker of some award-winning rhubarb recipe (note: no awards have actually been awarded.)  Acadia and I pulled the first harvest last week–

She is standing in front of the strawberry patch, which has somehow doubled since last year, and behind that you can see the raspberries and the row of rhubarb.  Funny how my spinach is struggling, my cucumbers are wilting, but the pie-friendly plants are chugging right along.  Even my garden knows dessert comes first.

Do you have questions about when and how to harvest rhubarb?  Click here for a refresher on the facts.  You don’t eat the leaves, just the reddish-green stalks seen here–

You can get an idea of their size in comparison to Acadia’s kindergarten-sized hands–

As long as a few leaves remain on the plant, you will continue to get new growth for a couple of months.  This was our second harvest, only a few days after the first.

After I pull the stalks and cut away the leaves, I rinse and dice the rhubarb.  The inside color varies from light pinkish-white to light green.  The more green it is, the more tart it will taste.

I freeze the chopped pieces flat on a tray before storing them in ziplocs in the freezer.  This makes it easy to add to recipes, which I do as is, in it’s frozen state.  Here’s my favorite thing to do with rhubarb. It’s a super easy recipe and it goes beautifully with vanilla ice cream.

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Notes from the roly-poly front:  The girls are starting to scare me with their mandatory round-up of these guys. The forced participation of all roly-polies born in our yard in the fun and games over at the newly opened roly-poly pavilion just seems excessive.

Here they are, not looking nearly as awful as they do in real life, going for a ride in the tuperware to see Kira’s teacher. Kira wants to know why the parents seem indifferent to the babies, crawling willy-nilly all over them without any special regard for the youngsters.  She didn’t like my answer (um, self-preservation in the face of abusive conditions?) and thinks she’ll get further with her teacher.  Apparently second-grade teachers don’t scream or use sarcasm when asked a simple question about the child-rearing habits of a billion creepy bugs.

Roly-poly pavilion now open!

daphne on May 13, 2009

On Saturday morning, while I was busy disengaging the wild raspberries from the strawberry patch and moving weeds to make room for rainbow chard seeds, my daughters had more pressing matters at hand.  The pine needle roof of the fairy home, constructed specifically to allow for shade and breezes, had blown over. At least now we had our answer as to what was keeping the winged nymphs from moving in.

The girls set right to work…but you know contractors.  No sooner had they promised to address the structural issues that had befallen the fairies then another job demanded their attention:  the roly-polies had arrived, and they needed a pavilion. Stat.

Ahhh the roly-poly, characterized by an ability to roll into a ball when disturbed.  Not that I am criticizing.  After all, I’ve got access to happy hour.  Who’s to say that without that half-priced vodka tonic I wouldn’t be curled up in a ball myself?

The girls whiled away the afternoon, attending to the myriad needs of the bugs of our backyard.  Girls will be girls, you know.  And for my girls, even the smallest moth deserves healthcare with respect. Which explains Kira’s rage at her father, who, as she reported to me during my absence, “refused to call an entomologist,” despite her beloved moth’s “near-death state.”

I know. I can hardly believe I’m married to such a cold-hearted snake.  Refused his children the right to see an entomologist?  What kind of monster indeed?

I don’t know.  Maybe it’s my fault for setting the bar too high when I phoned in for back-up from the Humane Society to help out with that baby bird last year.

Or maybe Daddies just don’t understand the special bond between a girl and her moth.