Metropolis Resort

Almost First Time Gardening

Sara Abbott, Resort General Manager

06/25/2020

My family & friends know I love gardening. It is my most favorite way to spend a day off. Digging in the dirt, moving my perennials around and watering plants. Every night when the sun is setting, I water plants and walk around and look at my flowers. I completely understand that it makes me sound super lame, but I am who I am.

One time my husband & I decided to put in a vegetable garden in our old house. Looking back, I think we planted 100 plants in a tiny garden made for 10. Cucumbers coming up where we thought we had beans, weeds totally out of control, and tomatoes that basically had no juice in them. It was a disaster. We decided we were never planting vegetables again and I filled in the garden with perennials...my kind of garden!

In September, we bought a new house with a big established vegetable garden. It has a fence around it, mature rhubarb, asparagus, chives, green onions, grapes, raspberries, blueberry bushes, apple trees and probably some more stuff that we don't know what it is. Against my better judgment, I said yes to a real garden because it would be easy this time.

We borrowed a big rototiller from my Aunt & Uncle. They also gave us a tour of their garden, explained how to plant it, and even gave us seeds and plants. I think they felt sorry for us! It was hard work. Tape measures, hoes, shovels, strings, poles, plants & seeds it all came together. I think we did pretty well!

I’m hoping to make some spaghetti sauce, salsa, and dilly beans. If we got a couple of pumpkins for Halloween, my kiddos would be thrilled. I have baked more this summer with all my rhubarb than I normally bake all year.

What are some of your favorite garden recipes? Who has a salsa recipe that you MUST TRY? What do you do with all the apples from your trees? I’ll start by sharing my favorite rhubarb dessert. I’m a busy working Mom so I don’t have a great deal of time. Most of my baking starts with a box mix of some type that I jazz up. This recipe is perfect for me!

Rhubarb Cream Cake

Ingredients:

• 1 Box Yellow Cake Mix (plus ingredients to make the cake as listed on box)
• 3 ¾ cups rhubarb, chopped into ½ inch pieces
• 1 Cup Granulated Sugar
• 1 Pint Heavy Whipping Cream

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix the yellow cake mix according to package directions and pour into a greased 9X13 glass baking dish.
3. Sprinkle rhubarb evenly over cake batter and cover evenly with sugar.
4. Pour the whipping cream over the top
5. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes until the top is browned.
6. Top with vanilla ice cream!