It started off innocently enough in 2004. Three little rhubarb plants. Tom, bless his heart, went out and dug a big rhubarb patch, connected it to the drip line, the whole nine yards. This was a big deal for him, it was out of his comfort zone. He considered it a spiritual quest. Whatever. We didn’t think we’d be able to harvest any “manna from heaven” that year, but we were wrong. The rhubarb gods smiled on us and there was crisp.

Then the rhubarb gods got an evil glint in their eyes and rubbed their hands in glee. In 2005 the rhubarb and the roma tomatoes were in cahoots and tried to stage a violent coup. The rhubarb prevailed. The roma tomatoes, on the other side of the yard in a garden box, killed some grass and at the end of the season, were harvested and the greenery tossed. Rhubarb 1, roma tomatoes 0.

Now it is 2006 and apparently the rhubarb gods are in hysterics. There is still a freezer full of chopped rhubarb from the 2005 coup, it is only mid-May, and here is what the rhubarb gods have presented me with:

The rhubarb isn’t waiting for the roma tomatoes this year. The rhubarb got cocky and is staging the violent coup of my yard all by its delicious self. The romas, lonely and still in their pots from the nursery, sit on the back porch and pout. Don’t get too cocky, rhubarb. We all know what happened in 2004 when the mint tried to take over. Mmm…tea… 

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