June 25, 2012

With a very slow vegetable garden, fruit is the headliner this week: rhubarb, marionberries, strawberries and of course apricots. (We’re over 100# now). Happily, I discovered that a neighbor is willing to trade plums for apricots. She pines for apricots and I love plums.

The rhubarb stalks are thick and I could almost fashion a skirt from two of the leaves. Recently, I found a little “nest” Lucy had dug in the shade of the rhubarb.

This was a modest harvest from the weekend. The ‘Dorsett Golden’ apples are ripe, though I forgot to include with the rhubarb. You can read about this combo in A Happy Garden Coincidence, a post from last year.

Most of the rhubarb-apple sauce goes to the freezer to enjoy throughout the year.

The marionberries have been slow to ripen in the “June Gloom” but as the weather warms, I’ll have enough for a cobbler or fruit crisp. My favorite way to eat them is when I’m working in the garden on a sunny day. The berries are warmed by the sun, soft, juicy and unwashed.  They taste like marionberry jam.

This last image is more about the mulch, than the strawberries. I usually use pine needles but this year decided to try the “Green Grind” available from the City of San Diego. I have almost no damage from sow bugs, though there are plenty elsewhere. Perhaps this new mulch is too coarse for the bugs. I think they may have just crawled in and around the pine needles. Gardening is about experimentation.