Green Wellies

Rhubarb runneth over

What do you do with a giant patch of rhubarb?

You pick some and make rhubarb nectar!  I've been making this each spring since the kids were young, if I've had enough rhubarb on hand.  This year's rhubarb is the biggest I've ever grown and I put it down to the gallons of comfrey 'tea' that I brewed last year and fed to the plants.  It was waist high...a record for me.

I got the ingredients ready and yes, that's white sugar, but I only use a fraction of what the original pioneer recipe calls for...

Everything is chopped and thrown into a large pot of water with cinnamon and nutmeg (I'm going to try fresh ginger with the next batch)...

Then it's simmered for half an hour until the rhubarb becomes mush...

The next part involves lining a colander with a large piece of cloth, pouring in the stewed mixture, lifting the edges of the cloth and letting the juice drain out.  I couldn't manage to hold the cloth and take a photo at the same time.  The juice is then returned to the pot and the sugar is added.  Now the concentrate is ready to be bottled...

The colour never ceases to amaze and delight me...rhubarb pink and nectar of the gods.

Time in the garden is time well spent

There was a misty rain this morning and then the sun came out and so did I.  I've been working on the side yard, which was a narrow strip between the cottage and my neighbours' fence.  The idea to transform it into tomato alley was small to begin with, but today, I took down a fence bit that divided it in half, laid more landscape carpet and covered it with cedar mulch.  Now I have twice the space to grow tomatoes, patty pan squash and zucchini, with hopes that the deer don't discover it.

My neighbours found a pile of enormous tea tins behind a restaurant in Vancouver and gave me two of them.  I hammered about 20 holes in the bottom of each, filled them with soil and they'll be recycled as plant pots for more tomatoes.

The hop vines seem to love the climbing rig I made for them and are working their way skyward.

The potatoes that I planted in three huge black pots are just peeking through.  I know I won't get a bumper crop, but just the thought of a meal with my own spuds is good enough for me.

When I open the back door, I'm greeted with the heady scent of sweet cicely blossoms.  The plants are shoulder height and I'm always amazed at how quickly they grow...like Jack in the Beanstalk quick.  The little bleeding heart plant is one that I discovered under drooping cedar branches, dug up and transplanted.  It's only ever managed the strength to produce one or two hearts, but this spring, it put on a surge of energy and looks like it just might survive as a real bush after all.

Even on a dull day, this shines like the sun...

And at the bottom of the driveway, this greets me when I pull in...

I had fun playing in the garden today and the forecast is for warm and sunny days ahead, so there will be more of the same in store for me tomorrow.   

Seaside snow garden...

It snowed all day and the proof is in the pudding...

This evening, the snow has turned to rain and this blanket of white won't last long  It was just long enough for a few photographs, for two dogs to chase snowballs and no chance to hibernate with a good book.  Life will be back to normal in the morning.

Turning over an old leaf...

We've been blessed with some sunny afternoons and I've finally managed to get the leaves raked before they became a thick soggy mess.  They've been dumped into the bin where they can work their magic and turn into good composted material.  The bin is a real makeshift combination of pieces of wood, some wire fencing that my neighbour gave me and two boat or dock markers that I found washed up on the beach after a storm.  By spring, this pile will have shrunk by about three quarters in height and I'll be hauling it back again to dig into the garden...a wonderful leafy cycle.

Comfrey tea update...

It only took nine days from the time I picked the comfrey leaves to it turning into the darkest brew of plant tea I've ever seen.  The most amazing thing was that the leaves all but disintegrated in the water and required only a bit a straining through an old window screen.  I used a watering can, but to eliminate the straining process next time, I'll just use my old garden kettle.  And...just in time, I had a message from Susie that it should be diluted with about ten parts water, so I ended up with far more than I bargained for and poured it liberally onto every potted plant, the tomatoes, the hostas and the sweet peas.  I've already started another batch in a huge bin.  Several large comfrey plants were flattened by heavy rains on Saturday and they became fodder for the brew.  Heaven knows what would have happened had I used it full-strength.  I'd be climbing a stepladder to pick tomatoes.

Giving Mother Earth a hand...

I've been giving some serious thought to ways I can make a small footprint and walk softly on this planet...a real attempt to be more than just a green thumb.  We composted and refused to use pesticides and herbicides long before it was fashionable to do so and in fact, we probably fell into the back-to-the-land hippie category in the 70's...growing our own food, belonging to a food co-op, vegetarian lifestyle, Harrowsmith magazine as a monthly guide and so on.  The whole green movement kind of skipped a generation in many places...my grandmother composted, grew her own vegetables, hung clothes on the line, milked a cow and baked her own bread.  I take such inspiration from the new back-to-the-landers, even if their "land" happens to be an inner city allotment or a suburban backyard.  People are stepping up to the plate and realizing that our earth needs some serious intervention and wonderful things are happening everywhere.  A few things in place on my small bit of the old back 40 are:

A house (made by my dad) for Mason bees, the kings and queens of pollinators...

   

A good old-fashioned clothesline for sweet smelling linens and things...

A vintage washtub that collects rainwater from the shed's roof for watering potted plants...

A great find at the local dump, my trusty English push mower...

A small raised bed of delicious organic herbs (when the deer leave well enough alone)...

Comfrey plants everywhere...

...being turned into comfrey tea as plant food from a recipe idea by *Susie* on flickr...

 

A berm of large clippings and pruned bits that are helping to keep the blackberries at bay...

And last but not least for today, the happy garden compost center...

None of these are grand or grandiose and I know there's so much more I can do, but I'm trying to take some steps in the right direction.  The intention is there, so action can follow.  If you know of something I can add to my to-do list, then I'm all for it!  There's nothing that gets me fired up more than a good brainstorming session.  Change begins with dialogue.

Cabin fever no more...

Yes, spring is well and truly here.  The hummingbirds are back zipping about the feeder from early morning until sundown and yesterday I drained the washtub fountain, refilled it and hooked up the pump.  The sound is music to my ears.

Mark Twain wrote, "It's spring fever.  That's what the name of it is.  And when you've got it, you don't know what you want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so."

I know what I want.  When all of the spring gardening work is done and everything is in its proper place and growing, then I want to bask in the sheer delight of warm sunshine on my face.  Just like this...

The tale of two trees...a love story

Over twenty years ago, my neighbour, Betty and her good friend, Tilly, who lived in the cottage that I'm in now, went off to the nursery to get some plants for their gardens.  They each bought a small laurel tree...only two feet tall.  They came home, planted them and watched them grow.  Tilly moved away, Betty missed her like crazy and still the trees continued to grow.  Several owners later, I bought this little cottage, became good friends with Betty and still the trees continued to grow.  This past summer, branches from her tree touched branches on mine, as though the trees had finally grown arms long enough to reach each other.  Two weeks ago we had a snowfall that lasted three days and it was too much for them to bear.  First, my tree collapsed from under the weight and a few hours later, Betty's tree came down.  Twenty years of growing side by side, twenty years of keeping each other company during hot summer days and rainy winter nights, harbouring jays, providing nesting spots for robins and offering shade from the sun, but they couldn't weather the storm. At least they went down with the ship together...true friends to the bitter cold end.  R.I.P.

Foiled At Last!

It turns out that the deer are fussy eaters after all.  I pulled the Jerusalem artichokes stalks and bulbs and not one had been chomped or chewed on.  Mind you, the bulbs are in the ground, but the stalks had reached a whopping ten feet tall and there hadn't been so much as a nibble.  I think the chokes have their own agenda, anyway.  I thought I'd gotten all of the bulbs dug out last fall when they threatened to overtake my raised bed and then a lovely new crop sprouted and sent up shoots in the spring.  I like them, but I can only eat so many and I can't seem to give them away...not a whole lot of artichoke lovers out there, at least of the Jerusalem kind.  I know in Britain that they are sometimes used in thick rows as a windbreak and I've even seen photos of stalks bent over and woven into each other, but that's not something I need with a million acres of forest right behind my house.  I dug and tossed all the small ones into the trees to fend for themselves, set aside some for planting if I can find a good spot and washed off the larger ones to save in the fridge for a rainy day.  So...if anyone knows of a tasty artichoke dish, I'm all ears!

Bear Alert...there's humans about!

This was clipped from the local paper with the instructions to post it in areas where bears are sighted.  Lordy, we'd need a whole stack of newspapers and we'd have signs posted all over Em's yard, right outside her bathroom window, in the neighbours' yards, on the steps leading to the beach and on the road in front of us.  Em's become a little more blase about them and says that it's more like shooing away a big pesky dog.  Me, I've got a hefty stick at front and back door, a Fox whistle in my purse, Casper by my side and if I hear branches breaking in the woods, I sing loud and clear!  Yup...we've got bears alright and now we just need our own personal Daniel Boone, instead of flimsy newsprint!  Can bears read?