Little Garden that could

Upon seeing this in my garden everyone’s reaction has been along the lines of, “You do know that spreads like a weed and takes over the garden”  My response “One can only hope!”

After making this recipe five times already in three months I knew I either needed to start a rhubarb only savings account or had better start growing my own rhubarb.

Since I am not supposed to harvest it for a year until it gets strong enough to take my abuse, I cannot vouch for it’s deliciousness. It has pretty much become the pomegranate in the Garden of Eden to me. I have to fight every day not to chop off these stalks and eat them right then and there. Maybe even sans sugar they look so amazing.

The start for the rhubarb cost 6 dollars, and if it goes wild as planned its first crop should more than pay for its cost, save me a ton of money, and make my friends Keri and Nicole very happy to partake in its abundance as fellow rhubarb lovers.

If I couldn’t eat these I may have boycotted gardening all together. So I did, as soon as they were ripe. And they were pretty amazing.

Heeding a warning from my friend Olaiya, I  put up a cage over my four small plants strawberry patch so that birds and squirrels wouldn’t swipe my strawberries as I allowed each berry to reach its peak deliciousiocity.

Alex is not a big strawberry man, which typically I would frown on, but in this circumstance I’m happyl to hog all of the delicious berries to myself. YUM.

I plan to hog the next batch that I picked tonight in my morning yogurt. I think the strawberries have produced enough to equal their cost of 1 dollar per start. And they are perennial, so they will keep paying off year after year with delicious free bounty.

These peas are just getting big enough to eat. Our start got a bit unruly, and Alex and I had to keep adding layers to our homemade trellis, (I did not include a picture as it is a bit unruly itself, next year we will make it more photogenic)

The start is probably about 8 ft tall. We also planted peas from seed, and they are a more reasonable (3 ft tall) and are producing pods with the same fervor.

This is our cash crop, it keeps producing and producing. Week after week, its been producing bowl after bowl of delicious salad mix. Enough that we haven’t bought salad mix at the farmers market in over a month saving us at least 5 dollars per week.

Cost of starts and seeds around 10 dollars, we have already doubled our investment, and unless it gets super hot I expect my cash cow to keep producing scrumptious greens to devourer.

We’ve also been enjoying the plentiful fresh herbs, rosemary, dill, oregano, mint, thyme, parsley, and chives. Looking forward to attempting chamomile tea from the buds that are appearing, and to attempting culinary lavender to make this cake.

Next to come peppers, tomatoes, melon, and hopefully cucumbers if we ever get past this dreadful June-uary in Seattle. For now I am happy to feast on cool weather greens, but do look forward to caprese salad from our purple tomatoes and purple basil.

What are you all growing, what’s your cash crop so far, what are  your go to garden delights, what recipes do you like to make with your garden?

Any experiments that have gone well or not so well? Would love to hear your insights, I need all the help I can get with this garden.

Also,does anyone can or make jam? What are your favorites? I want to get in to that later in the year? Any tips? Let me hear it ya’ll!  Enjoy the season whatever that means in your neck of the woods.

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