Gardening: April 2003 Archives

WOO HOO! Finished the fourth and last garden bed today! Now they are ready to be sectioned off and, in May, planted.

Progress on the other plants, too. A second eggplant seed sprouted and the marigold seedlings are coming along great. The lettuce is just peeking above the ground too. And all four of the rhubarbs have sent up leaves -- they live! they thrive!

Rhubarb looks kind of like red celery or Swiss chard. It grows in bunches of stalks that have deep green leaves. The stalks range from green to deep magenta red. (The green ones are the most tart.) You cut the stalks in the late spring and summer, and then let the plant replenish itself for the rest of the year. Only the stalks are edible; the leaves are poisonous (although it seems in the 1800's they were used medicinally.) Sometimes around here (Maryland) you can get it fresh in the supermarket or at a farmer's market. The plant comes back, year after year. My grandmother has plants that could be 70 years old -- they're huge!

The stalks are not eaten raw, and are too tart to eat by themselves. (In The First Four Years, Laura Ingalls Wilder tells how, as a new bride, she learned this lesson the hard way. She calls rhubarb "pieplant" in that book.) But with a little sugar, they can be chopped up and stewed, jellied, baked in pies or crisps, or frozen for later. Rhubarb also marries well with other fruits, especially strawberries.

A slice of rhubarb pie is one of life's sublime pleasures. The jingle from Bebopareebop Rhubarb Pie? It's all true. I'll be harvesting my first rhubarb next May or June. I can't wait.

A nice weekend, with lovely weather. We did make it to the book sale -- no spectacular finds; I was hoping for some good Catholic books but the Religion table was pretty picked over -- not much left but stacks of Thomas "Care of the Soul" Moore and Sarah ban Breathnach books.

More digging in the garden. We finished the third bed and are halfway done with the fourth. It's taking a long time because I am double-digging the beds -- shoveling off the first 12 inches of topsoil, loosening the subsoil, replacing the topsoil, and raking in amendments. The premise behind double-digging is that it gets plenty of nutrients into the soil and improves the drainage. It seems to be working -- we got two inches of rain last week with no puddles in the garden beds. It's also hard work -- taking off 16 cubic feet of soil takes a while. Our soil is pretty poor -- the first two inches are okay, but then the heavy red clay starts, and then about a foot down is an incredibly hard layer of grey clay. I tried using a spade and then a fork to break up that layer; eventually I resorted to a small axe-like thing we found in our shed (I think it's called a mattock.)

While I've been doing all this digging, I've been turning up huge rocks, some the size of small melons. We had quite a rock pile built up on the patio, all rocks we'd pried up from the garden. We finally met our next-dorr neighbors this afternoon -- my husband was talking with them in the front and somehow the topic of rocks came up. They got all excited because they use those rocks in their landscaping. So our rocks found a new home and, three wheelbarrow loads later, everyone was happy.

More reflections on gardens tomorrow. Meanwhile, I am pleased to report that it looks like the rhubarb I planted last Saturday is starting to thrive -- two of the roots are beginning to show leaves, and the other two look like they're sending up new growth as well. Alas, not much progress to report on the lettuce, and none on the carrots....

A chilly, rainy day. The garden bed that I dug and hadn't filled in yet is now a pond.

On Saturday, when I bought my rhubarb, I picked some up for my friend (whose hobbit name is Iris Boffin of Needlehole.) Anyway, Iris had taken a day off from work today, so she came over for lunch and to pick up the rhubarb. We had a nice lunch at IHOP and then went over to the nursery and to a birdseed 'n' stuff type store to look around.

Iris and I have been friends since 1981. She is an avid gardener and knows all about animals and the outdoors. One of the nice things about my new gardening fever is that I can appreciate her knowledge so much more. It's fun to have another thing in common and to be able to swap things like fill dirt and plant cuttings. I will be consulting her for advice on bird feeders one of these days.

The weekend went by too quickly, as usual. A grey, rainy day today, with rain and a little hail. So no gardening today. I was a seriously sleepy Mommy this morning -- the bed was so nice and warm, and my brain was so set on finishing its REM sleep....

Apologies to all, by the way, for the severe lack of content in my recent blogs. It seems like it's been garden, garden, garden, quiz, cute baby story (cute to me, anyway), garden, quiz, garden, garden. (My husband is also asking "aren't you done with that thing yet?" although he was asking that after the first weekend's work...) I'm psyched about the garden because this is the first time I've really planned one out instead of just sticking things in the ground. Anyway, I'm not done with "that thing" yet, but I should be done soon. We finished installing the mow strip this weekend. I also am about halfway through double-digging the northwest bed (future home of tomatoes and -- I hope -- eggplant.) I'll have one more bed to dig and then the heavy work will be over -- hooray!

On Saturday the nursery got some rhubarb in. I ended up planting four roots in what is now a dedicated rhubarb bed. How I hope they take! I also put in some garlic, with more to go in once I get the third bed finished.

Last week, I also tried starting some seeds indoors. So far some of the marigolds have started to sprout. No movement from the eggplant seeds, though. As for the outside beds, I see the first little sprouts of mesclun peeking above the soil.

Keeping Hambet out of the garden has been a real challenge. I've tried telling him all about the baby seeds (say that in your best little kid voice: baaaaaaaaaaaby seeeds!!!) and how we let the baby seeds sleep in the ground. I thought that was working, but last night, when I showed the indoor seedlings to my husband, Hambet got so excited about the baaaaaaaaaby flowers that he snatched one right out of the dirt to show Daddy.