My Garden: April 2014

It's spring! That means time to start working in the garden. Weeding, planting starts, weeding, planting seeds, MORE weeding. Between the weather being unpredictable and a busy schedule I haven't had much time to get out. Here are a few picture of what my garden looks like so far.

My rhubarb is coming up nicely thanks to the leaves and rabbit dropping I covered it with in the fall.

Chives as always growing in the corner of the raised bed. Had a chance to pull weeds around it.

Pansies coming back from last year!

White an yellow primroses also coming back from last year!

The raspberries are starting to grow, and also trying to take over! I've been pulling many raspberry shoots from where I don't want them. Also, don't mind the dandelions trying to take over the raised bed right now which are the same ones as last year. This year I promise to tackle them and actually plant something in the raised bed!

First thing I did in the garden was transplant all of my strawberries into this cool tower that my Dad built last year. Got the idea from Seattle Tilth and original post about it can be found here. I can't wait for my strawberries to grow in here!

See?! I did plant something in the raised bed. Leeks and garlic have been growing here all winter. Can't wait for fresh leek and potato soup!

How are your gardens doing so far this spring? I love to hear from you!

Tastes of Spring: Rhubarb

Wow! It has been a while since I've written a new post. It is definitely spring here in the Pacific Northwest, and I love it! Besides the fact that the weather can't make up it's mind and can (and usually does) go from rainy to sunny several times during the day. It makes getting out into the garden or going for a run a little tricky.

On Easter I went up to Mt. Vernon to visit my grandparents and see some tulips. They're so gorgeous!

While I was up there I stopped by my dad's cousin's house to pick some rhubarb. She has a HUGE plant (wish I took a picture of it); so big that you could not even tell I picked about ten stalks! So now I have lots of rhubarb, and need to figure out what I am going to make with it. Such a hard thing to do since my family and I LOVE rhubarb! I cut up 4 cups for a pie for my dad's birthday and stuck that in the freezer. Of course we had warm rhubarb sauce over vanilla ice cream for dessert that night. Now I still have plenty of rhubarb to try out some new recipes. My aunt gave me the Taste of Home Farm Fresh Favorites cookbook for my birthday a few years ago so I decided to look in there. Low and behold they have a whole section with rhubarb recipes; muffins, pie, jam, ice cream, etc. Which one to try first?! This morning I made the Rhubarb Lemon Muffins (recipe in the link), and the turned out great. They are especially delicious with a little butter and homemade strawberry jam!

I think I may try this recipe again, and use grated fresh ginger to replace the lemon peel. They would become rhubarb ginger muffins.

Next recipe to try is the Rhubarb Popover Pie (again recipe is in the link) for breakfast tomorrow! And of course I'll be making a batch of rhubarb jam! What are your favorite things to eat in spring? Do you have a favorite recipe with rhubarb?

This is How My Garden Grows (May 2013 Update)

I have been so busy lately that I have been horrible at weeding my garden, and planting seeds this spring. Thankfully rhubarb doesn't take much care so I already made a rhubarb pie!

The raspberries are trying to take over the whole garden area. I've been pulling shoots out of every section lately. The bees are busy pollinating, which is what I like to see! There are already too many berries starting to grow that I can't count them all. :) In the picture, don't mind the patch of dandilions that currently occupy the raised bed.

This year I'm trying out those Topsy Turvy tomato growers. I hope that having them in a sunnier spot will produce more red tomatoes instead of being left with a bunch of green tomatoes in the fall. A bonus is that while out for a walk around the neighborhood a couple weeks ago, I found a table with FREE tomato starts! I'm Dutch, so anything free is awesome!

Another new addition to my garden this year is the strawberry tower. I got the idea when I was on a field trip to Seattle Tilth with my pre-k class. I figured it would be easy enough to DIY so I drew a mock up on Google SketchUp first, and then handed the plans over to my Dad. Thanks to Stacy for the strawberry starts to put in it! I'll transplant the rest of my strawberry plants after they finish producing fruit this summer.

Last but certainly not least, is my flower bed. Which has actually been getting more attention lately than the garden. I noticed dahlia shoots coming up so I weeded around them. I had to cut/pull out some of the vinca ground cover to give the dahlias and iris more space to grow! I aslo took out the sticks that were supposedly supporting them as they grew, and replaced them with tomato cages since I won't be needing those this summer. A nice addition of rabbit poop fertilizer, and they're growing wonderfully. Now if only the slugs would stay away from them. :(

I'm hoping that blogging about my garden gives me more motivation to finish weeding so I can plant more. What have you planted in your garden this spring? What would you like to grow in your garden?

Delicious Rhubarb (and a garden update)

This post is slightly past due since it was actually two weeks ago, but it's still worth writing about. It's rhubarb for goodness sake, and who doesn't like a good rhubarb pie? I know I certainly will choose rhubarb pie over cake any day!


Any ways, two weeks ago I went back to water the garden and everything had seemed to sort of explode growing-wise (weeds included to my displeasure). The best part is that both rhubarb plants were ready to harvest for the first time this spring!

Here are my freshly picked and cut rhubarb stalks. :) Eight isn't so bad for the first harvest! And what do we make with rhubarb...

  

...a rhubarb crisp of course!! Since rhubarb is quite tart I like to add extra sugar to sweeten it up a little. Also, since rhubarb is watery when cooked down I stick it under the broiler at the end of cooking time to crisp up the topping. :) I'll try to take pics while I'm making it next time for a post about rhubarb crisp.

Since I  haven't posted much lately I also have a general garden update for you.

I planted my starts in my little greenhouse a few weeks ago. Much to my frustration a windstorm a week ago knocked it over, and I had to replant ALL of them! I was not happy about that. :/

This little beauty was a surprise daffodil in the front flower beds. Still need to weed those...

These are the gorgeous daffodils that come up year after year in the front corner flower bed.

So that's it for my brief garden update. Hopefully I'll post soon about whatever gardening and/or crafting I do this weekend with the wonderful warm weather we're supposed to get here in Seattle.