My family & friends know that I love gardening. It is my favorite way to spend a day off—digging in the dirt, moving my perennials around, watering plants... Every night when the sun is setting, I water plants and walk around to 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 a vegetable garden in our old house. Looking back, I think we planted 100 plants in a tiny garden made for ten. 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 even more stuff that we aren't even aware of. 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 and enjoy!