I’m very impressed that you are growing sooo much on your balcony! You are a farmgirl at heart! Thanks for commenting here!

P.S. Thanks for explaining your rhubarb growing secrets! I want in on one of those tire turning demos!

We add about 1/3 soil, 1/3 compost (if we have enough), and 1/3 peat moss. Divide the crowns with a shovel and transplant in early spring when the the first leaves break the ground. You don’t harvest any rhubarb the first year, and only sparingly the second. By the third year it’s going great. Clean out the chicken coop in the fall and top dress after the plants have died back after a freeze. The bedding/manure mix is the secret to great early spring rhubarb.

You can include mints in that perennial list as well. Yes, indeed, the culinary economics depend on perennials.

When I grew up, we ate what we had. Preference had little to do with it. We learned to appreciate everything or do without. Waste was not an option. I was raised on whatever meats my father managed to shoot or trap out of the fence row or shelter belt. That meant quail, rabbit, pheasant were what I ate long before beef and chicken. Fresh milk, homemade bread, and whatever the garden produced was the bigger part of our diet. Today, I have learned to eat and like most foods. There are very few things I am adverse to eating or at least trying.

I have fed a hundred children and staff members on a moment’s notice when the food company truck failed to arrive. “What are we going to do?” was the question put to me. My response was very simple, “Let’s pray and ask God.” By prayer, asking God to provide, then looking around at the fields and wild edibles available at that season, with the help of the children in harvesting, we spread the table for a memorable feast. Many children learned real faith through that lesson – and the feast of field corn gleanings steamed over the coals of a campfire and windfall apples cooked in aluminum foil to make applesauce will not be forgotten for a long time. It wasn’t on the menu, and it wasn’t what anyone thought of, but it was delicious, nutritious, and healthful. God’s answer came to bless us using faith, human observation, and a willingness to do the work of harvesting and gleaning. We were thankful for our foods, unable to complain, or comment on preferences.

One year and I can’t remember the circumstances it grew to great height – at least 3ft and the leaves were wonderfully fall colors. I’m not sure if it got more water or less in this high desert climate.

Strawberry rhubarb pie is ‘as they say’ to die for.