Almost First Time Gardening
My family & friends know that I love gardening. It is my favorite way to spend a day off—digging in the dirt, moving my perennials around, watering plants... Every night when the sun is setting, I water plants and walk around to look at my flowers. I completely understand that it makes me sound super lame, but I am who I am.
One time my husband & I decided to put a vegetable garden in our old house. Looking back, I think we planted 100 plants in a tiny garden made for ten. Cucumbers coming up where we thought we had beans, weeds totally out of control, and tomatoes that basically had no juice in them. It was a disaster. We decided we were never planting vegetables again and I filled in the garden with perennials... my kind of garden!
In September, we bought a new house with a big, established vegetable garden. It has a fence around it, mature rhubarb, asparagus, chives, green onions, grapes, raspberries, blueberry bushes, apple trees, and probably even more stuff that we aren't even aware of. Against my better judgment, I said yes to a real garden because it would be easy this time.
We borrowed a big rototiller from my aunt & uncle. They also gave us a tour of their garden, explained how to plant it, and even gave us seeds and plants. I think they felt sorry for us!
It was hard work. Tape measures, hoes, shovels, strings, poles, plants, seeds... it all came together. I think we did pretty well!
I’m hoping to make some spaghetti sauce, salsa, and dilly beans. If we got a couple of pumpkins for Halloween, my kiddos would be thrilled. I have baked more this summer with all my rhubarb than I normally bake all year.
What are some of your favorite garden recipes? Who has a salsa recipe that you MUST TRY? What do you do with all the apples from your trees? I’ll start by sharing my favorite rhubarb dessert. I’m a busy working Mom so I don’t have a great deal of time. Most of my baking starts with a box mix of some type that I jazz up. This recipe is perfect for me!
Rhubarb Cream Cake
Ingredients:
1 Box Yellow Cake Mix (plus ingredients to make the cake as listed on box)
3 ¾ cups rhubarb, chopped into ½ inch pieces
1 Cup Granulated Sugar
1 Pint Heavy Whipping Cream
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix the yellow cake mix according to package directions and pour into a greased 9X13 glass baking dish.
Sprinkle rhubarb evenly over cake batter and cover evenly with sugar.
Pour the whipping cream over the top.
Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes until the top is browned.
Top with vanilla ice cream and enjoy!
