Utopia’s First Stalks
This is the season for fresh fruit in my neck of the woods and my fav combo , you guessed it, strawberries and rhubarb.
I was trying to figure out what to do with the first harvest from my newly minted veg garden in Utopia: a whole three rhubarb stalks. It took two years from the initial ordering of the raised beds to actually filling them and sorting out all the logistics. I purchased a couple of corrugated steel planters and spent some time figuring out a) the best sun angle for the plants and b) how the placement lines up with the cottage? But it’s finally planted and growing this year’s experimental batch.
The biggest stumbling block has been the animals. We regularly get deer and rabbits on the property, along with the usual raccoons and squirrels. So protecting my precious garden, plus the challenge of keeping it watered during the week, definitely added to the mental block.
I went through multiple ideas and iterations for how to protect the beds. Full enclosures with gates. Online kits with curved metal hoops you stick into the soil and then cover with… something? After a year of mulling it over, I finally decided to do the most minimal thing possible: four‑foot sticks from the garden store and some black netting. In the end, that’s all I needed.
Then came the challenge of watering. I looked at so many drip irrigation systems I started seeing double. They all looked the same after a while; and complicated. In the end, I chose a simple soaker hose system and paired it with a smart water timer. Eureka. I finally did it. Easier than I thought. The garden now gets watered three times a week without me lifting a finger.
Which is why I was delighted to finally pick a few stalks and make my strawberry–rhubarb parfait. There’s a real pride and joy of growing one’s own produce, then actually getting to eat it. To show off the harvest, the parfait was an appropriate choice. Of course it had to be sugar‑free, gluten-free, healthy, and super easy to prepare. I took it to a friend’s place for an after‑dinner dessert and it was devoured.
So I’m sharing the recipe here, in case you want to take advantage of the season’s yummy fruit and make a dessert (or breakfast?) your friends won’t even realize it’s good for them.
