First Rhubarb of the Season
Yesterday, I harvest the first rhubarb of the season. I have some frozen strawberries from last year’s harvest that I have saved for this day. A delicious strawberry rhubarb sauce was made, which will be stirred into semifreddo to make a strawberry rhubarb ice cream.
It’s such a wonderful flavor combination, no wonder it’s so popular. Of course I made more than I needed for ice cream, so I’ll have it to stir into yogurt as well. I’m happy as can be that the harvest season has arrived, it’s such a wonderful feeling to be eating seasonal fruits and vegetables once again, especially those harvested from my garden!
What are you harvesting from your garden?
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Friday Favorite: Seeding Vegetables
It’s quite an amazing thing to sprinkle seeds on the soil, cover them up, water, and watch then sprout and grow into edible things. I seeded radishes last week that are already up. It’s the season for direct seeding all sorts of things: peas, beets, onions, lettuce, endive, etc.
I haven’t plants my main crop peas yet, but ‘Golden Sweet’ which are a sugar snap variety have been seeded. These are one of my favorite types of edible pod peas.
Beets are another one of my favorite vegetables. I love them boiled, steamed, pickled, roasted, fried, pretty much any way you can cook them. They will be seeded a couple more times throughout the summer so I have an endless supply for the table.
What are you seeding in your edible garden this weekend?
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Garden Companions
It’s nice having garden cats, it seems that whenever I’m working in the garden there’s a cat nearby. They bring me gifts of mice and voles, they happily roll in the catnip I planted for them.
When I’m spending LONG hours in the garden like I am this time of year, it’s nice to have the cats to keep me company.
Do you have any pets that “help” you in the garden?
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Happy Hellebores
In my Ohio garden I had one hellebore (aka Lenten Rose) and I loved it. It grew beautifully and seeded down in a few spots. Eventually, I’d love to have a dedicated hellebore garden, until then I’ll make do with the few that I have here and there in the garden.
I have a lovely white and pink one, a dark purple one, and a green one that I brought from Ohio. I’m hoping that they’re finally mature enough to start producing seed so I can start growing my own seedlings. If you want to read more about these beauties and see lots of lovely images of a wide variety of colors, check out The Layered Garden. Even if you aren’t into hellebores, you’ll love the beautiful garden featured in this book.
Hellebores are fantastic because they are evergreen and they bloom super early in the spring. I’m looking forward to having a dedicated hellebore garden someday in the future, they should do very well in one of the woodland areas. I should be able to cross pollinate these three plants to get a few interesting colors/varieties. Perhaps I’ll just move them all to one area of the garden and see what mother nature does on her own.
Do you have any plants that you are looking to have a garden area dedicated to?
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Sunny Forsythia
Even though forsythia doesn’t produce nectar or pollen, I still enjoy seeing it’s sunny face in the garden during these early spring days. I’m sure it still provides habitat in some way, most likely in the thicket of stems and branches.
I’ve been contemplating adding a long hedge of forsythia along our driveway. We need something like it and I could propagate the entire hedge for free from the one bush we have. My parents have a huge forsythia hedge and it’s amazing most years. Every 10 years or so they cut it back to the ground and it is a little stunned for a few years, but the 5-7 years after the trimming it’s always a showstopper!
Do you have a forsythia in your garden? What’s your favorite early blooming shrub?
