Anywho, I digress …

I thought it was time for a gardening update.  Oh yes, I have news 🙂  Probably not quite what you think, but news.

Let’s start with the rhubarb.

The first shoots came up really fast.  Woohoo!  Sadly, my rhubarb did not grow very tall.  It kept wilting in the sun, so my faithful Gardening Assistant, erected a very attractive rhubarb  shade from some wooden poles and an old bed-sheet.  It kept the rhubarb from getting sunstroke, but the stalks still wouldn’t grow tall.  The longest one is a little over 8″.  Kind of stumpy for rhubarb.

My dad grew rhubarb in the back garden when I was growing up.  You wouldn’t expect much success in London, but his rhubarb was perfect.  Three differences to consider:

1. There isn’t as much sun in London as the SF Bay Area and there are hard frosts in the winter.  I don’t like that, but rhubarb does.
2. Dad used some pieces of air-conditioning duct to surround the rhubarb and force it to grow tall.  I don’t have any.
3. There was a rag-and-bone man that regularly came past the house in a horse drawn cart.  Dad would run out and collect any droppings with a bucket and shovel.  He would then parade through the house before depositing his street gold on the rhubarb.  Just in case you think I grew up in the Victorian era, this was the early 70’s!  It should come as no surprise that there is no rag-and-bone man here in Silicon Valley – horse drawn or otherwise.

The rag-and-bone man looked just the way you would expect – old, wizened and kind of shabby.  His call was “Any old bone?”.  My dad would rush out the door with his bucket and shovel and … well, nuff said 😉

Anywho, I digress …

It turns that that for good rhubarb, you mustn’t pick any for the first year 😦  In the second year, you can only pull two stems per plant!  Thus I reverted to Plan B – find rhubarb in the supermarket and buy it.  Thus a pie is born, carefully crafted by my Gardening Assistant Chef.  The pie was made with only half a cup of sugar, as I like my pie to bite back.  Unfortunately, my Gardening Assistant Chef finds that too sour, so I am the only one left to eat it 😀

Good rhubarb also requires a non-flowering plant.  Mine flowered.

The Sunflowers took about 10 days to sprout,  now look at them, tall but lacking flowers.

Hey, Rhubarb!  Get with the Sunflowers and stretch!

Hey, Sunflowers, did you hear that? The Rhubarb flowered!

Lisa.