Try a slice of rhubarb pie

Now's the time to use some rhubarb for that favorite pie recipe or to make some rhubarb jam, or even a rhubarb upside down cake. Here's a special recipe that my family has always enjoyed. It comes from the Ladies' Home Journal Cookbook, 1962 ed.

Rhubarb Pie: 9 inch pie pastry
1 quart cut-up rhubarb
1 cup sugar, 1/3 cup flour, pinch salt
3/4 cup milk

Beat together sugar, flour, salt and milk until smooth and thick. Put rhubarb into unbaked pie shell. Pour sugar mixture over rhubarb. Bake at 450 degrees for 20 minutes, until crust begins to brown. Reduce temperature to 350 degrees and continue baking until filling thickens and becomes glossy, about 30 minutes. Serve at room temperature or chilled.

I've had a few questions about what to do with rhubarb plants once they go to seed. You can cut the seed stalks off and discard them and continue picking your rhubarb, which should encourage it to produce new growth. If you leave the seed stalks on it will gradually slow down. It's not necessary to cut down the rhubarb plant itself other than to pick off dried, wilted or sunburned leaves.

Catching Up With Spring

Spring has really gotten ahead of me, especially since we had to go out-of-town last weekend. Now the little weeds are big weeds, and the poppies, the dreaded poppies, are all over the place and getting ready to - Pop! A few days of windy, cool, rainy weather haven't helped the situation, but sunnier skies are moving in this week so I can get back to working outside.

Last Friday we had a busy day at our house. We had gotten our baby chicken chicks the day after returning from our trip, and they were all still alive and comfortable. We are at the end of several weeks of having a new kitchen built at our house and the appliance guy was coming in the morning to work on the new stove installation. At 6 am the post office called to say that our baby pheasant chicks were in. My husband was out turkey hunting and I had to go to work, but he managed to pick them up before too long and get back before the stove guy came. When that was taken care of he left to go get some baby pigs.

We haven't had pigs before so this was an adventure. They are pretty little and they scratch a lot - more than they should - so I got them some stuff for that today, and more food. They do eat a lot. They are quite friendly, though. The white one is the most friendly. At night I help feed them. We put mash in a feeder pan with warm water and I stir it up with a stick. They crunch on some dry corn while I do that, and then they dive into the mash - literally!. We have a pen for them in the barn and we're going to fence in an area outside, too. Their pen has a door to the outside.

On Saturday Dad got a wild turkey. It is his second one this year, the first time ever that he's gotten 2 in the spring. We had grilled turkey breast for supper last night.

Horseradish Management

Hi Sara - One thing you might be interested in is that horseradish is also a member of the dock family, just like rhubarb is. I ought to look up the scientific name so I could tell you all about it, but for now we'll just talk about horseradish.
You've pointed out the biggest problem with horseradish, or with any dock, which is that it spreads. It gets much bigger than you thought it was going to. Don't feel bad about keeping it under control, because that is the only solution. You can give some away, or just dig some up and throw it away. When we dig ours in the spring, we usually dig some extra to give away. We have one row about 15 feet long and it's always full of plants. It started out with about 3 little plants, and we certainly don't need all that we have now. Good luck with it.

It's been wonderful to finally have some nice weather in our area. The last several days have been in the 60's F and breezy and mostly sunny. Now the soil feels dry! Dad plowed the garden over the weekend and he also plowed under what was left of our old asparagus. Today he's going to plant lettuce, spinach and radishes. We've already had some Belgian onions, which also got caught by the plow.
My garden helper, Cathy, came over on Saturday and we worked in the big garden in the yard for 2 hours. I have lots of grape hyacinth all over the place, so we cleaned out some of that to give some of the bigger plants more space. We also made up some pots of plants for a plant sale coming up in a couple of weeks.
On Sunday I mostly worked in the raspberries. The raspberries have a long history at our house, including being wiped out in 1995 by a huge storm that toppled a big willow tree right onto them. We got them replanted by fall that year, but still had the rows too close to each other. They had previously been in one large patch, and we'd wade into it to pick - not the best situation, so rows were good, but we underestimated the space needed. Anyway, they've been reduced to two rows, which has helped, and I was cleaning out the garlic mustard, one of the scourges of Central NY. And I was pruning as I went along, which should have been done in March! Our next door neighbor (1/2 mile away) has a very nice raspberry patch, where they used to have a pick-your-own operation. It is so perfect and neat you wouldn't believe it. Little gravel rows, each plant just there in its own space, no weeds in sight. I bet they just groan and shake their heads when they drive by our house and see our raspberries. Still, it looks good to me, and whenever I work in the the raspberries I think I could make a life out of doing that and never go back to the office again. DK