Time for Rhubarb

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A couple of weeks back, we blogged about the first signs of Spring, one of which was the burgeoning Rhubarb. This week, these trusted perennials have spread their leaves and some are now ready for picking.

The Rhubarb has grown fast and some is actually now ready for harvesting.

We have a whole raised bed dedicated to our Rhubarb. We had originally found two of these plants in the back of our house under a dilapidated deck. When taking the deck down we learned how to transplant and split the roots in order to propagate them. We now have some twenty healthy plants ready to produce all Spring.

The variety we have on hand is called Strawberry Rhubarb. It has beautiful red stems and tends to be less tart than its green counterpart.

Red stems of the Strawberry Rhubarb

So how do we know when to pick our Rhubarb? It's easy. We simply harvest any stems that are at least 10 inches long. We'll be harvesting these until the end of June. We probably could pick more, but it is important to give the plant some time to build up energy before the Winter arrives. By end of June, we simply have many more things to harvest and use, so we can certainly give our Rhubarb time.

As a result of the arrival of Rhubarb, it will be time to make a change at the Tea Room. For the past few weeks, we have been featuring Maple Syrup pie with Pecans (made with our own Maple Syrup of course). Over the next few days, this will now be phased out as we begin work on a traditional Rhubarb pie.

To start the week though, we decided to make something a little different: a Rhubarb Custard tart. With a crust and custard based on brown sugar, the result is a beautiful pie which is not as tart nor as sweet as the traditional Rhubarb pie. We like the results so much, we're actually thinking of making tartlettes in this fashion.

Our first Rhubarb Custard pie

Now, we can hardly wait until the Strawberries come out! Which brings us to our next farm report.

As a berry farm, we have just about everything under the sun, from Haskaps to Saskatoons. However, we do not have any Strawberries planted (with the exception of half a dozen plants).

This year we decided to dedicate a small plot to Strawberries. Although there are great Strawberry producers in the region, we wanted access to our own Strawberries for the Tea Room, so we planted some 500 plants this week.

A new Strawberry field...just for the Tea Room!

It is amazing how rapidly things grow in Spring. Already many of our plants are flowering and showing signs of great crops in the next few months. This includes the Haskaps and our Currants.

The Haskaps are in full bloom.

The Currants are loaded with buds awaiting to bloom.

Hopefully these plants will not be affected by a late frost.

In the Growing Dome, things are progressing even more rapidly. Basically, everything is sprouting.

Of course the plants that are most ahead are the Scarlet Runners and the Peas. These plants have no problems getting started in a greenhouse environment.

As usual, this year we also decided to try some oddities. Some of these tend to be non-traditional. This year for example, we've focused on a few Asian varieties. This includes a Chinese Black Tomato and Okra.

In fact, knowing our fascination for new plants, last year one of our Asian visitors dropped off a package of seeds. They were large and segmented as if coming from some sort of pod. However, we never really understood what they were. We've been calling them the "Chinese mystery seeds".

Well now these seeds are sprouting...and the plant is no less mysterious! We were hoping to recognize the variety from the leaves, but now we're just as dumbfounded. If any reader can help us identify this plant it would be highly welcomed.

The forked leaves of our "Chinese Mystery Plant"

We'll close this week with a picture of blooming tulips (under our European Copper Beech)...another clear sign that Spring is well on its way.

Tulips flowering in the shade of our European Copper Beech.