Rain and gardening

The forecast for this weekend called for rain and it poured most of yesterday. I wish I'd gotten more seedlings into the soil of my garden on Friday evening and that I'd had the ground more well-prepared in advance to have been able to sow my bush beans before yesterday's downpour. It's warm and sunny this morning, but the ground is saturated, so it looks as if today will be another day with my nose in an Eliot Coleman book or on the bike. It's too wet to do anything, unless I just skirt the sides of my garden and pull some more of the lemon balm that spread throughout it last summer (which ended up being my first gardening-free season in years). Right now, my established perennial herbs are thriving -- oregano, savoury, sage, lemon thyme, parsley and chives. My echinacea is coming up. The three heirloom Brandywines I planted last week are looking nice, as are the still-potted organic jalapeño pepper and zucchini. I hope that the scattered heirloom carrot and organic black-seeded Simpson lettuce seed had time to settle in before the rain, so that it didn't get moved around or bunched up much. I discovered a couple of asparagus plants on Friday, surprises from seed I'd planted a couple of years ago and about which I'd forgotten; I think I'll try to nurture them to see what I can get out of them since I've never grown asparagus before.

The rhubarb in the yard is lush and green and ready to start harvesting over the next few weeks. I'll likely freeze much of it, but would like to can some -- maybe find a recipe for chutney or something along those lines. I'll have to be mindful of food preservation techniques I use over the next 4-5 months, since I'll invariably have to pull up stakes to move before the fall is over because of oil prices. This past winter, I'd thought about using this year's rhubarb to teach myself to make homemade wine this year, but after spending a couple of weeks sans-vino, I'm thinking of taking a cue from more straight-edge types and of continuing to abstain from alcohol. Between the expense and the multitude of health issues associated with its consumption, I think it just makes sense. Maybe part of today, then, will be spent finding preservation ideas for rhubarb, then...