rhubarb

we just planted two rhubarbs that we got from a local nursery for a couple of bucks each. a neighbor recently gave us some strawberry plants that he'd culled from his own patch, so getting some rhubarb (mmmm - pie...) suddenly seemed urgent. rhubarb can live a long time and likes a cool spot, so we picked a place on the north side of the house that we didn't have any other big plans for.

so far this year, aside from the usual greens and various herbs, we've planted a pear (a mate for another pear we planted two years ago), two apples, two blueberries (we've got one that's two years old and going gangbusters - they love acid soil, and that's what we've got), several jujubes (a great tree for our climate, native to asia. it bears little apple/date-like fruits and has a fantastic latin name: ziziphus zizyphus), sweet potatoes, pumpkins, and peanuts! we read that you can grow peanuts from plain old raw peanuts you can get from the grocery store. they need a long growing season...we've got that...so we soaked about 10 nuts in rainwater for an hour or so and stuck 'em in the ground. peanuts are a great source of fat for vegetarian diets - we hope they'll work out.