First rhubarb harvest of the year.  Same day as last year!  I could have taken some a few days earlier, but I was waiting for an excuse to make fresh rhubarb crisp, and the visit of a friend made this the day.  Sweet crisp fresh rhubarb!

This plant laughs at a late spring. 

I still had rhubarb in the freezer from last year.  Although it doesn't lose much in the freezer, it does lose a little something.  So I made a big batch of rhubarb chutney.  I thawed it first and drained the juice before adding the vinegar.  It made for a great batch of chutney. 

Posted by gail_heineman at 9:51 AM YDT

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Today I took my three Tanichthys albonubes, white cloud mountain fish, from the indoor aquarium in which they overwinter, and put them in my outdoor fish pond.  It's just a round rubber horse trough, probably only about 15 gallons, but they thrive in there all summer eating mosquito larvae.  These three fish are the survivors of about a dozen that I bought about eight years ago.  They much prefer life outdoors, getting fat and sassy from all that live food..  I won't see much of them until the fall, when I drain the tub to find them and bring them in.

There are many, many mosquitoes in the yard, so those fish will not go hungry. 

Posted by gail_heineman at 11:54 AM YDT

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I'm back from out of town.  Today I planted carrots, lettuce and spinach.  My transplants that I put in on May 22nd have survived being outside, although the Black Jack zucchini are suffering.  But then zucchini never like transplanting anyway.

The plants inside still in pots inside are still ok, except that the tomatoes that I plan to put outside are really leggy.   It's still too cold for them so they'll have to wait.  The tomatoes in the greenhouse (bump windows) are in their permanent pots and look happy, from 1 to 3 feet tall.

There is no sign of aphids in the house yet.  Last year they came in on some plants I bought, and they really hurt my greenhouse tomato production.  So far, so good.

Posted by gail_heineman at 11:49 AM YDT

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I'm about to leave for 10 days and it's a late spring.  What to do?  Put my too-big transplants in the garden and hope it doesn't freeze, or leave them in the greenhouse where they'll get too leggy?

I compromise and plant only the biggest ones, Red Sun sunflower, Galego Greens (collards from Spain), kale, vitamin green.  After I left, my husband put in the leeks a friend had given me.  

In the past several years, the weather was warm enough by May 15 to transplant, and plant seeds.  Not this year!  When the birch leaves are opening, that's when it's time. 

Posted by gail_heineman at 11:45 AM YDT

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 Winter solstice is past and the days are getting a little bit lighter every day.  But still the blooms of my Amaryllis planted at Christmas are a welcome sight.  A week ago I pulled hyacinth bulbs from my refrigerator crisper where I stashed them last fall, and put them in a clear glass jar on top of colored marbles, with water just touching the base of the bulbs.  The roots grow almost fast enough to watch!

I also planted tulips and daffodil bulbs that I had stored in the same crisper bin.  These I planted shallowly in potting soil.  Ideally I would have had them potted in the frig all this time, but my husband considers food a higher priority than flower pots in the frig for some strange reason.   

Posted by gail_heineman at 8:40 PM YST

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