So into the oven went the rhubarb – chopped and topped with sugar, cinnamon and star anise, then covered with foil – for about 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes the revolting-looking mess that is stewed rhubarb was strained, giving us a nice sweet frothy rhubarb pulp.  Once cool, and once we stopped dipping our fingers in it, two teaspoons of pulp went into each champagne glass and was topped up with a rather fabulous Prosecco (Riva di Rocca) from Ben’s Wine Shop in Oakham. Bit of a stir and it was ready to drink…

Delicious!!  More of a Christmassy flavour though, so we’ll save this one for winter – next of the list will be to try out some summer bellini recipes (any excuse!).

Links:
TasteBuds Kitchen Garden Blog: Rhubarb Blog Post | Blog | Twitter
Ben’s Wine Shop (Bat & Bottle), Northgate, Oakham: Riva di Rocca Prosecco | Website | Twitter

We also harvested three sticks of rhubarb and a test onion! Oh, and some sage… it is going mad so need to find a good way to dry it or freeze it – any tips?

Hopping around us for much of the morning was the friendly robin, loving the fact that we were unearthing a lot of worms for him… greedy little thing!

The rhubarb is coming up really well and the raspberry canes are going mad, so we’ll be ok for puddings this year!

Tonight we completed the weeding around all the crops, so it looks so much better now. Just the rest to dig over and a strip of grass that previous owners had as a path to get rid of – we may have to cover that over for a few weeks to help shift it.

Looks like we’ve got ants back in the compost bin… might try the cinnamon technique on them, it worked well in Lisa’s wormery so is worth a try.

Siobhan cleared the weeds around the raspberry canes, which we can see new growth on (can’t wait for some fresh raspberry cocktails this summer!), while Lisa rather haphazardly dug out some of the main plot which the grass is working it’s way into

Stopped for a brief cuppa too, from a very girly flask, but got spotted and ribbed by another allotmenteer!

Also coming through is one of the rhubarb plants, there’s some growth on the rose bush and the onions that overwintered may just be ok after all

On the outskirts of our plot we now have ‘Rhubarbia’ – three rhubarb plants (and another two unplanted) which are likely to keep us in rhubarb for many years to come! Can you overdose on rhubarb?

Rhubarb recipes welcomed!