Rhubarb Soda Pop

My first garden harvest this year was some rhubarb from my 3-year old rhubarb patch. I planned on making some rhubarb syrup to use to make soda pop...and it was delicious.

My rhubarb bolted this year, probably due to the drought-like conditions last summer. The two sheathed stalks in the photo below are flower stalks. They were cut off near the base of the plant once I realized what they were.

Here's what the unopened rhubarb flower looks like. At first, I thought it was just an unfurled leaf all crinkled up, but it was actually the flower head.

Making the rhubarb syrup was easy. I mention the recipe I use in this post. After letting it cool, I mixed approximately 1 part rhubarb syrup with 2 parts club soda. The resulting color was a pretty pale pink. It reminded me of pink grapefruit...and it actually tasted quite a bit like grapefruit too!

Getting back to it!

It has been a LONG time since I last posted. Life has been busy (and difficult). I've worked at 5 different jobs since last fall...trying to find that long term career has been more difficult than I ever imagined. I spent the spring semester teaching introductory biology at a community college, which was a blast. However, once May rolled around, I found myself unemployed yet again. That said, the last week and a half since the semester ended has been fantastic! 

I got my lettuce and other salad greens planted.

I grew my first ever pullable lettuce plug. For someone with an horticultural background, this is a BIG DEAL!

I've been able to spend all day, every day, in my garden. I've transformed my raised bed garden into a (hopefully) more productive linear bed layout with a drip tape irrigation system. I bought an irrigation kit from www.dripirrigation.com and added a few extra components to customize it to the size of my garden.

The drip-tape system was incredibly easy to install, I didn't even need the instructions once I got the filter and backflow preventer hooked up to my spigot. After last year's drought-like conditions, this is going to be a huge timesaver (and plantsaver). All I have to do is turn on the spigot for about 45 minutes each morning and walk away. The hardest part is remembering to turn the water off again!

My chickens have been enjoying some valuable mommy-and-me time. I've been letting them out into the yard all day every day (except for the day when a giant husky tried to eat them). They are still enclosed in a makeshift fence, so they aren't completely free-ranging (which is illegal in my city, by the way). 

I haven't been able to harvest much from the garden yet. However, the perennial herbs and rhubarb have already been quite productive. I made a rhubarb syrup using 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar, and 4 cups chopped rhubarb. I simmered it for about 20 minutes and strained the syrup from the pulp. I imagine the pulp would make great fruit leather, but I didn't want to haul out my giant dehydrator just for one sheet. So far I've used the syrup to make rhubarb soda, which is pretty tasty.

My front tulips, daffodils, and other bulbs were really pretty this spring despite the harsh drought conditions of 2012. After the tough summer last year, I was pretty sure that my bulbs wouldn't do much this spring, but I was wrong. My grape hyacinths were particularly nice this year. I brought these bulbs from my parents house to my new digs four years ago. They have multiplied quite a bit!

Signs of Spring

I don't go into this part of my yard very often, so I was completely surprised by the little clusters of crocus .

This hellebore has been continuously blooming all winter since it has been so mild.

I was afraid my rhubarb hadn't survived the winter (since we had almost zero snow cover), but look what I found!

The Wolf Moon and Spanish Roja garlic that I planted last fall is well on it's way.

Maybe the second year's the charm with strawberries, because last year was a total bust.

My lovely ladies enjoying the sun and warmth in their temporary playpen (so they have access to fresh grass).

Fruit Gardening (a.k.a Pie Gardening)

I'm planning on planting a variety of fruit crops this year including strawberry (first time), raspberry, black raspberry, blackberry (a first), and rhubarb (another first).  I've cleared out the majority of the oval bed that was my cut flower garden last year to make space for a fruit garden. I have a feeling that I'm going to have to make another new bed for the space-consuming rhubarb. I'm really excited to expand my pie and jam repertoire this summer!

The oval bed will become the fruit garden (assuming I can work around the existing perennial flowers).

Are you trying any new fruit crops this year?

Adventures with Rhubarb

I have never grown rhubarb before (or cooked with it).  I will be trying my hand at growing it for the first time this year. I really wish I had started more perennial crops when I first moved into my house, but I was too occupied by building raised beds my first summer (and just plain too busy the second summer).

I bought a couple of bags of 'Victoria' rhubarb roots (6 total). I was really confused at first because when I fished the plants out of the bags of peat and woodshavings the plants looked and felt like large soggy wood chips.  Being a horticulture graduate student, I knew something was wrong. There was no way they were supposed to look like this, right? At that point I got really angry at the store I bought them from...who do they think they are selling this crap to unsuspecting customers? I felt duped. I wish I had remembered to take a photo of these weird spongy things, but I was really frustrated at the time.

I called the store and explained what I had found, and they said I could bring them in for a refund.  The person at customer service seemed as confused as I was when I showed her the contents of the packages. She said that I could either get a refund or exchange them for different plants. I really really wanted some rhubarb, so I said I'd take a look at the remaining stock. I swear, only 4 bags out of about 50 had any sign of life inside of them. I was allowed to open up the packages and make sure all my plants were alive.

This is what the second batch of rhubarb roots looked like.

In the end I got my 6 plants, but I'm a little concerned about all the other people who are going to buy these things, plant the soggy woodchips in the ground, and expect something to happen.

Hopefully these woody chunks will actually root out and survive!