A Rhubarb Garden - Finally!

 

You may look at this photo of four rhubarb plants growing alongside a garage,

and you may think,

BOOOORRRRIIIING. 

Also: the grass needs trimming. 

And why the flimsy chicken wire fence? To keep the chickens out, of course. 

But I assure you -- this is a very exciting photo!
For two reasons:

1) I have finally -- FINALLY - established a rhubarb patch. After 14 freakin' years in Nova Scotia. I know it's not up to the local standards, I mean, seriously 4 plants? For a proper rural rhubarb patch, there should be at least twenty plants and it should take up a huge amount of space. 

Whatever. Considering I've been trying to establish any kind of rhurbarb patch for six years, I'm calling this a win. 

2) There is HERITAGE rhubarb in that patch. That's what's making my patch a patch, in fact. My two plants, put here last year, were joined a few weeks ago by two plants from my mother-in-law's patch at the home place (what Dwayne calls his family's home on the farm). I'd been meaning to get some rhubarb plants from down at the farm, in order to have some "family rhubarb" growing -- proper thing. But my sister-in-law's big patch was already too mature -- long-established, it grows quickly in the spring -- but Joan remembered that our mother-in-law had a few plants along a shed. She said the plants never took

but I tell you,

they took off when they landed in my garden. 

Normally, a plant has to get rooted and acclimated to a new spot; it may not grow well after transplant. 

Not the "Mary Mattinson Heritage Rhubarb"! They are the plants on the far right and the far left and they are growing faster than the two plants I've been carting around the property since 2015. My original plants grow well, no worries; I get lots of fruit from them. But Mary's rhubarb? Now that's true sturdy country rhubarb there, folks. 

So my small patch -- which may expand as the summer progresses, if I get the urge to dig more garden -- is growing well and making me very happy. 

First we brought "Dad's couch" up from the home place, and now we have "Mom's rhubarb". I love legacies. I love keeping the memories alive, the stories flowing, and the love fertilizing my life with Dwayne. 

I'll stop now. That metaphor might get out of control!