Category: Garden

We each chose a most hated shrub and killed them today. One of the great things about gardening is being that grim reaper who takes away so that others might have a little more light, a sip more water or just the spot occupied by that the ugly thing in the corner by the fence. My own dead semi-tree of choice was chopped and stacked to be replaced by a big pile of sheep poo and peat moss where the squash shall hold dominion this summer. The ground there was a bit mossy and weighed down by clay so I buried a small short gravel and rock drain to draw the water away. The first effort at starting the Blue Hubbards was a total failure but six others live on the kitchen window sill to be hardened off over the next week. Yesterday, was all planting. Purple fleshed carrots. Multi-coloured Swiss chard. 500 onion sets. And a dump run. There was an hour wait at the transfer station all for the joy of dumping broken foldie-uppie camping chairs along with the remains of a basketball hoop, a deceased elliptical training machine and a load of other crap. Sugar snap peas are up. The leeks look hopeful even if only green threads in their laundry room trays. Purple Cherokee tomatoes are leggy but may make it. Time will tell.

We each chose a most hated shrub and killed them today. One of the great things about gardening is being that grim reaper who takes away so that others might have a little more light, a sip more water or just the spot occupied by that the ugly thing in the corner by the fence. My own dead semi-tree of choice was chopped and stacked to be replaced by a big pile of sheep poo and peat moss where the squash shall hold dominion this summer. The ground there was a bit mossy and weighed down by clay so I buried a small short gravel and rock drain to draw the water away.

The first effort at starting the Blue Hubbards was a total failure but six others live on the kitchen window sill to be hardened off over the next week. Yesterday, was all planting. Purple fleshed carrots. Multi-coloured Swiss chard. 500 onion sets. And a dump run. There was an hour wait at the transfer station all for the joy of dumping broken foldie-uppie camping chairs along with the remains of a basketball hoop, a deceased elliptical training machine and a load of other crap. Sugar snap peas are up. The leeks look hopeful even if only green threads in their laundry room trays. Purple Cherokee tomatoes are leggy but may make it. Time will tell.

We were fooled. Warm has been replaced by cold. Next week there is a risk of frost. Fortunately, we did not go too far down the road of planting. The peas are just taking their first peak above soil and the blue hubbard squash has been transplanted into pots that can be brought inside. Seeing as I have not even done the taxes, this is good timing. The Arkansas leeks and Cherokee Purple tomatoes seeds were only planted in the trays yesterday waiting down in the basement to decide when it is time to sprout. Very early days.

Lots of time for digging, however. Me and the lad were out this morning digging out a root ball of an ex-shrub. It took secateurs, shovels and an axe but the score ended up Nature 0 Mankind 1. I appear to be at the one shrub stage of life. Whacking away at the damn thing did not exactly set stars spinning about my head but a second might have. I wonder at what point the gardening shifts from telling me how out of shape I am and move on to letting me know the effort is worth it.

Rhubarb is one of my favorite things. Spring food. Sour and astringent. It makes the years since childhood contract. A cup of white sugar into which a raw stem was rammed, the stalk chewed as if on a dare. Stewed rhubarb leading to the earliest bowel related humour at our table, pretend mad dashes for the washroom mid-dessert. Pies. Lard rich crust glazed with a crackle of rhubarb filling. Later, as a young married couple, we made weak rhubarb juice on a slow simmer that was cooled then mixed with cheap Ontario white wine as a particularly fine weekend drink. Today, I dug up and separated the rhizomes, halfway between thick carrots and thick sweet potatoes. I separated them in the patch where the compost bin used to sit and gave them a long soak of water from the hose. What was one plant should now be six. If I had a farm, I would have a rhubarb house. I understand the best in England are built over coal mines with only the light of one candle to ensure the stems are as pale as possible.

No yard should be without rhubarb.