Gardens are full of miracles and disappointments

June 6, 2023 by
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Usually by now I would have posted my annual ode to rhubarb, one of the first items most gardeners can harvest each spring. This year the rhubarb was delayed due to a long, cool April, but in May it leapt out of the ground due to a burst of warm weather. The joke around here is that spring lasts roughly one afternoon before summer arrives with heatwaves and mosquitos (which seems to be accurate this year). Although rhubarb is the first harbinger of gardening season, it is not the most anticipated. That honor goes to strawberries.

If nothing untoward happens in the next several days, I am looking at a bumper crop of strawberries in our garden. This abundance has little to do with my skill; the large crop is mainly due to my negligence in cleaning up the garden last autumn. The strawberries, which were contained in a raised bed, spilled over the edges and into the ground around the bed, snaking around in haphazard fashion. It looks messy and provides a challenge for harvesting because I must tread gingerly lest I step on a succulent berry, but I will take that tradeoff.

It’s not just the berries that are thriving due to my neglect: I let lettuce, shiso, dill, and cilantro go to seed and now I have multiples of each. The fact that doing nothing can result in an abundant harvest is both miraculous and daunting. I spent hours tending to transplants of chamomile, which will readily grow in sidewalk cracks, and this year none of it returned.

Many advice columnists compare relationships to gardens and often suggest that one should cultivate the former as they would the latter, by nurturing and paying careful attention to them. After seeing what neglect has done for my strawberries, I wonder if that advice is so great. I’m ready to give some chamomile the cold shoulder and see what happens.

As soon as the strawberries ripen, I intend to make a strawberry-rhubarb slab pie (the rhubarb is conveniently planted next to the strawberry patch). Currently I’m eyeing Mostly rhubarb and just a little strawberry slab pie with a butter and shortening crust from Pie Squared by Cathy Barrow and Rhubarb berry slab pie from Eat the Love by Irvin Lin. What’s growing in your gardens this year?

Category: Antipasto

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7 Comments

  • JaniceKj  on  June 6, 2023

    We moved to UT 10 years ago. Every year is a challenge, not just spring and gardening, but all seasons as well. Just when I was dominating the tomato gardening, we had a dry, heat season in 2019 full of bugs and grasshoppers too big to tackle. With a short vacation almost at harvest time, all was lost. I look forward to the farmer’s market now. This year has had challenges of snowfall, rain, cooler temps… we’ll see what the market will offer… Enjoy those strawberries!

  • lean1  on  June 7, 2023

    Mostly herbs. Some lettuce and peas. Chard isn’t growing this year.
    Spring and fall radishes.

  • matag  on  June 7, 2023

    Trying a couple of patio pots of tomatoes again. Last years were miss marked. The “heirloom” tomatoes turned out to be cherry tomatoes !😢

  • vickster  on  June 7, 2023

    I have the usual planted in my summer garden but was most surprised in early spring by some volunteer lettuce that started growing in a very unusual area – including my lawn, with no assistance at all by me. Thanks to all our winter rains I’m sure. But it amused me that this lettuce did better than any I have ever tried to intentionally grow!

  • anya_sf  on  June 7, 2023

    I gave up growing anything edible a while ago after my husband uprooted my thriving rosemary bush (because it was “too big” – seriously? He couldn’t just trim it back??). Sadly, its replacement has failed to thrive.

  • eliza  on  June 7, 2023

    One of my favourite topics! I have an allotment garden and grow almost all my veg for most of the year. Everything from asparagus, rhubarb, peas, and lettuce to beans, kale, tomatoes, herbs, and blackberries. I’m self sufficient in garlic and potatoes…what can I say, it’s just something I love doing. The allotments have a nice community of fellow growers and we share a lot. I recently made the rhubarb scones from Food 52 and they were quite amazing.

  • KevinSeattle  on  June 9, 2023

    “Summer will be on Tuesday this year.”

    It’s a Seattle joke, but sadly…

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