BTE, hugelkulture, hydroponics and other unconventional gardening

[Beekissed]

It's a great vision, LG! I can't tell you how much just a few IRs have decreased my pest load here!

I too will be doing a cover crop this year, but I'll be letting the sheep graze it, trample it and poop on it after it's big enough. Then I'll let the ducks in to work on it also. By then I expect it will be time to either cultivate it into the top layer of the garden or plant right into it, as is.

Will also incorporate a few raised bed situations for the perennials that do not enjoy our heavy, wet, clay soils in seasons that have too much rain followed by too much heat. Rhubarb, for instance.

 

[flowerbug]

I can't even give Rhubarb away. Well, my Mom will take enough for 1 pie. At least she will take the Rhubabr Sunshine Juice that I can. She loves that stuff.

yet, when i see it for sale in the grocer's they don't sell it cheap!? i should ask the guy who runs the weekly farmer's market if he'd want some...

 

[Lazy Gardener]

Can't wait till my new plantings of rhubarb are big enough to harvest. A co-worker gave me some last summer. Unfortunately, I had made 17 jars of strawberry-rhubarb jam before I noticed that it had lots of woody fibers in it. Kind of like little fine splinters. So, unless I pick through the jam as I use it, I might as well just dump it in the compost.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

I've never even tasted rhubarb.... I guess I need to change that!

 

[wyoDreamer]

My poor rhubarb plant got totally flattened by the roofers when they stripped the garage roof and re-shingled it. I am hoping that It comes back this spring. There is a second plant that is tucked along the house foundation that is barely holding on because the dogs keep trampling it. They will be fenced in a different area after this summer, so it just needs to hold on for a little longer, lol.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

Both will come back. But, I'm guessing they will do better if moved away from your foundation. Because of the leachate from concrete, the soil there tends to be alkaline.

 

[flowerbug]

Can't wait till my new plantings of rhubarb are big enough to harvest. A co-worker gave me some last summer. Unfortunately, I had made 17 jars of strawberry-rhubarb jam before I noticed that it had lots of woody fibers in it. Kind of like little fine splinters. So, unless I pick through the jam as I use it, I might as well just dump it in the compost.

after all that work! just mix it with apples or berries and eat it anyways, it's not like the fiber is going to hurt you. just goes out as brown as the rest of it...

 

[wyoDreamer]

My cousins used to sit on the picnic table with a bowl of sugar and eat the rhubarb right out off the plant. Snap off a stalk, rip off the leafy top, wipe it clean on their shirt, dip it in the sugar and munch away. It is too tart for me to enjoy that way.

 

[Hinotori]

Ive eaten it that way when I was a kid and Mom had a plant. I also remember her slicing it up in a bowl and putting sugar and cream over it for us.

 

[flowerbug]

My cousins used to sit on the picnic table with a bowl of sugar and eat the rhubarb right out off the plant. Snap off a stalk, rip off the leafy top, wipe it clean on their shirt, dip it in the sugar and munch away. It is too tart for me to enjoy that way.

i'll stand there and eat it as it is without sugar. i like grapefruit without sugar too. tart things are good.