How Does Your Garden Grow

It has been absolutely gorgeous here for the last day and a half. It has actually stopped raining for more than six hours. Of course all of the rain has really made the garden take off. Of course our strawberries didn't really produce. It's been three years since we've planted them. I see little tiny berries start, but they never turn red. The rogue radishes that cropped up are already going to seed. Of course, one of us has to be home to actually start harvesting.

I also think our raspberries are going to have a had time producing. The weeds have almost completely taken over, so I'll have to see if I can't transplant some of the younger plants to somewhere else. We have a couple of spots that need plants, so maybe they will do better there.

Fresh Fruit

Since we got our fence up, it seems to be keeping out the rabbits really well. I'm very excited about this since I haven't been able to grow green beans since we moved to this house. I did have to go to the Farmer's Market Saturday to buy some rhubarb. We have our own plant, but it seems to be too dry for it this year. I've picked three times and this last time it didn't look all that ready. I made strawberry rhubarb sauce with it and it tasted really good! I have plenty of strawberries and rhubarb now to try to can the sauce. It will be quite the adventure since I've not canned this sauce before. It's always an adventure trying to can in our kitchen though. It's a little small, but we manage to do it!

Gardening

It has been really rainy for the past few weeks. We finally had the chance to get out and garden yesterday. I weeded the strawberries for almost an hour and didn't get all of it done. I did have to transplant a few rogue strawberry plants that had decided to grow on the lawn. I also transplanted some holly hocks that were trying to take over the strawberry patch. I'm not sure if the holly hocks will survive, but I tried. I also picked my rapidly growing rhubarb. Like I said, it's been raining here quite often and the rhubarb just took off! I cut it up, after giving half of what I picked to a friend, and got about 2 1/2 cups from what I picked. I made this really tasty, sugar-free strawberry rhubarb sauce. Of course we are out of ice cream and weren't able to try it out. Hopefully we'll be able to plant the rest of the garden this week, however they are calling for more rain for most of the week.

Rain, Rain

So, I have cut our seed potatoes Saturday so they can "cure" before they are planted. We were hoping to have them planted Tuesday, but alas, they still sit "curing" on my counter. It thunderstormed Monday night and rained on and off on Tuesday. There was even a chance of tornadoes. Today, it has been raining on and off again. Pretty soon it's going to be May and we're going to have a very late crop of potatoes. If my prepared potatoes are still good, that is. We still have a large quantity of seed potatoes, so we have an ample supply to try again. I don't know if they keep from year to year or not. I guessing not.

My husband and I aren't completely new to gardening, it's just been so long since either of us remembered planting some of the stuff we've decided to try this year. We've also decided to try the hanging tomato plants in hopes that the rabbits won't eat them off the vine. Of course gardening for us is always and exercise in patience, and somewhat futility, since there are so many rabbits in town. We're thinking about live trapping them and taking to them to the wildlife care center. We may even get some stray cats that we'll take to the shelter.

For now, we just wait for the rain to stop long enough to work in the garden again. I have some wild hollyhocks that need transplanting since they are in with our strawberries. But our strawberries looked to have survived another winter and our rhubarb has started to come up. Maybe this will be the year I can make strawberry-rhubarb preserves!