Dividing (Splitting) Up Rhubarb

dividing rhubarb

Years ago I was given a Rhubarb plant from a work colleague.

I’ve talked before about the journey of this poor neglected plant into my garden. The short of it is that it was left to dry out, forgotten in a garage, then eventually sent my way where it got (accidentally this time) left for another day to dry out, then finally planted in the garden to flourish.

As I said in that post, Rhubarb plants are tough. They are extremely resilient and while I wouldn’t recommend treating them badly like my first plant was, they can tolerate a fair bit of unkindness.

It’s been at least 18 months since my Rhubarb plants found their current home, and at that time they were split off from the original plant to create 5 new plants.

Dividing Rhubarb up is not only useful for propagating more plants, it’s also important for keeping the original plant healthy. The bigger it gets, the thinner and fewer the stems tend to be, and the whole plant can get a little out of control.

Which is where our Rhubarb patch had got to.

dividing rhubarb

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Zucchini Relish

Courgette Relish

Recently we had a lot of rain, followed by some really warms days. Which is optimal weather for growing lots of oversize Zucchinis. It’s awesome to get so many large Zucchini, but it’s also a bit of a problem because …

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Preserved Beetroot

Cooking Beetroot

Cooking BeetrootI’ve never been a fan of Beetroot. 

I think I was put off it as a kid when it would come in a burger (common addition to a New Zealand burger) and even if I took it out, it would leave a big, soggy, bright red stain on the burger bun that I would then have to eat around.

Or maybe it was from reading too many historical novels that would describe a hideous sounding meal including boiled beets.

Either way, they’ve never been a vegetable I’ve warmed too, and so it is another vegetable that I never used to grow.

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Preserving Leeks – Caramalised Leek and Garlic Jam

preserving leeks

preserving leeks

Last year, we grew a LOT of Leeks.

We enjoy Leeks. I wouldn’t say they are either of our absolute favourite vegetable but they definitely make a regular appearance on the table.

Even then, there was no way we were going to get through the 20 or so sandwich bags we had full of them in our freezer.

We had already given away a dozen or so bags, but I have to say, Leeks don’t seem to be a particularly popular vegetable among my friends and family so it was difficult to even give them away.

I really wanted to find a way to use our supplies up though. I didn’t want to waste them since we had gone to the effort of growing them and I just knew we had to find a way to enjoy more of our home grown Leeks.

Maybe there was a way of preserving Leeks, other than freezing them?

After searching around online I didn’t really find anything that excited me but I started thinking about all the Onion Jam recipes I had seen, and whether using Leeks would work just as well.

So, with 3 bags full of Leeks, a few other ingredients and my preserving pan, I went into experiment mode.

With fabulous results!!

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It’s Garlic Planting Time!

Growing Garlic

Today is the shortest day of the year for the Southern Hemisphere. The Winter Solstice. The shortest day of the year is when the sun is appears at it’s lowest altitude, at noon. It falls on the 20th or 21st …

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