By Jeff Carter

Attached to many of our garden plants are memories of people and places.
We will have already been harvesting rhubarb by the time this column is published, which brings to mind former neighbours, Charlie and Mariel. The original root they gave us came from their farm and it is still with us, having been relocated to a shady corner of our garden and, more recently, to a sunnier spot.
Moving the plant is a simple process. Simply divide the root in the fall with a spade and lift up a portion. Place it in the new location, adding a shovel of compost. Harvest only sparingly the following spring, if at all, and within a year or two there will be enough for pies, jams, and other culinary delights.
Rhubarb is not a particularly challenging garden crop for home gardeners. Even left to its own devices it will persist for years or even decades. In order to produce the desired large stalks however, it does need a bit of attention, something that I learned when we stopped one day at the little pie shop that was located just west of Mount Elgin in Oxford County.
The proprietors, an elderly Amish Mennonite couple and their daughter, had a patch next to their home to which a prodigious amount of horse manure had been added.
In the absence of horses, I’ve found the compost I make from yard and kitchen waste works quite well. Our rhubarb plants each get an ample shovel of the material both fall and spring. Not only are we rewarded with a more bountiful harvest, the plants remain productive for much longer in the growing season.
Another of our perennial crops, this one acquired from a couple who are now living in Blyth in the heart of Huron County, is sorrel. Our seeded type bolts with the heat of the summer but with the wide array of other garden choices at that time that’s not an issue. We harvest the hardy, perennial green early in the season and again in the fall and even in winter, if temperatures remain mild.
It can be either cooked or eaten raw. This year I added a cup to a blend of roasted root vegetables, the heat of the vegetables wilting the leaves to enhance the dish with a lemony flavour.
The same couple gave us a handful of Egyptian walking onions which I dutifully planted and observed. Within the space of a single season, the patch filled a cylindrical area about the size of a small wash tub.
I harvest the little top onions that form on the stalks throughout the summer. Leave the plant to its own devices, these will eventually flop down to the ground and root themselves; hence the term, walking onion. The underground portion of the plant which is similar to regular green onions can also be harvested over the winter months in mild climates and in the early spring.
Years ago, we purchased five heirloom roses, my favourite being the Stanwell Perpetual, which sadly succumbed to the passage of time. Just two persist, a red-and-white example and a classic Queen Anne shrub which continues to bloom prodigiously.
They were acquired just outside Chatham along the Thames River where Paul Andre King began growing and marketing heirloom roses after retiring from a lengthy career in the seed corn business.
I approached King a few years later during the height of the neonicotinoid controversy, hoping for an observation on the matter. Better to smell the roses was the message he offered and upon some consideration, I cannot help but agree.
Two other plants represent a connection to our farming roots. For Marie, it is a gooseberry bush – the North American type by its appearance – which should be ready for a prickly harvest within a few weeks.
For myself, it is the lily-of-the-valley. Before the farm in Oxford County was sold, I moved a clump to the backyard of my parent’s new home in town and later transported a few from there to our home in Dresden, the patch growing in size over the years in a relatively shady section of the yard.
I remember as a child the plant growing along a line of soft maples close to our farmstead in Oxford County, likely having persisted there for decades, a few small plants, highly scented when their springtime blooms appeared.
I remember, as well, a small miracle from that time later in the year. At least it seemed a miracle. A flock of monarch butterflies, not just a handful, not just dozens or scores, but thousands upon thousands, settled upon one of the maples late in the afternoon, turning green to orange.
They remained there a while as the heat of summer persisted, moving from the tree to the adjacent hayfield in the morning in search of nectar, and back again at evening time. Until they departed as they had come. Unannounced. ◊