Virginia Real : Spring Time Means Rhubarb…

May 23, 2016

Spring is here…I guess. In our neck of the woods, we have had rain almost every day for weeks. Due to the rain and cool weather, my garden in town is not looking good. I’m ashamed to even show pictures, it looks so bad. As usual, I grew most of my tomato plants from seeds, but they look pretty sad. We did buy some plants from a local greenhouse nursery because Charming wanted to introduce a few new heirloom varieties for seed-saving purposes. Although those plants looked good when we purchased them, they now look as sad as my home-grown ones. Since tomatoes thrive on sunshine and hot temperatures, about the only thing we can do is wait for the sun to shine and the temperatures to go up.

Our garden at the farm is mainly for experimental purposes only. I’ve planted a few things there just to see what will grow well. So far, I’ve planted potatoes, tomatoes, beets, pumpkins, and onion seeds. (Most people say that it’s difficult to grow onions from seed, but for some strange reason we’ve always had good luck with onion seeds.) Because the weather at the farm is always a few degrees cooler than it is where we currently live, frost is a real possibility until late May or early June. We found this to be true this past week when frost bit the fourteen tomato plants that I had planted the week before. I think there’s a chance that four or five of them may survive, but we realize that gardening at the farm will largely be trial and error for the first few years.

On the bright side, the previous owners of the farm had planted quite a few things that may be of help with my soap-making and salve-making hobbies. I’ve recently discovered that we have a comfrey plant beside the porch and a rather large patch of mint in the garden. Since the garden is not an ideal place for mint (it can be invasive), I’ll have to get it out of there and move it to a better location. Perhaps by the cottage, which is beside the river, would be a better place or maybe in a large container. I have plans to try to turn some of this mint into hard candy that can be used as cough drops. I’ll try the comfrey (along with other herbs) in a batch of soap or salve as comfrey is a healing herb.

In addition to these herbs, I was delighted to find a large patch of rhubarb in another corner of the garden. Charming had plowed the garden early in the spring just to test out the used cultivator we had purchased. We were amazed a few weeks ago when we noticed the rhubarb growing, as the cultivator had dug into the ground about a foot. So I’m figuring we may have lost some rhubarb due to the cultivator, but this determined patch demands to be cut every time we go to the farm. So far, I’ve gotten about eight quart-sized freezer bags, each full of 1-inch sized pieces. The rhubarb is a beautiful mix of red and green and it seems to grow and grow and grow and grow. By itself, rhubarb is a bit too tart for most tastes, so in recipes it’s often paired with strawberries or raspberries. (Luckily, we also discovered that we have a big raspberry bush next to the house...which will also need to be moved.) Rhubarb provides a slight tang to compliment the sweetness of other berries. Right now, in celebration of spring, there are rhubarb recipes in magazines as well as on the internet. I’ve tried recipes for Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble, Strawberry Rhubarb Slab Pie, and Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp and the rhubarb never disappoints. So I give a hearty, “Hello Spring and Welcome Rhubarb” every time I taste this scrumptious gift from nature!