Rhubarb - revisited

[farmerdrea]

I say revisited, as it's come up before, but not - as far as I could see - addressing my question about it.

We have it in abundance here, and it's gone to seed just recently (we're in summer now). What is the best way to deal with the seed heads? Last year I cut them off before they made seeds, and this year I left the seeds to form (mostly because I had a bad head cold and was just too knackered to do maintenance like that).

When I cut off the seed heads last year, I got a second crop in the autumn. But has the plant gone bitter now that most of its energy has gone to making seeds?? Can it still be used?

What's the best way to keep them growing and producing well?

I never even knew I liked rhubarb till a few years ago, and now that our place came with 8 plants, we get a bumper crop every spring...

Cheers
Andrea
NZ

[Joe]

Not sure about what the crack is now it's gone to seed but my father-in-law swears that the best way to promote good growth is to cover the plants with an overturned bathtub - makes them stretch as they struggle to find the light apparently... not 100% sure at what time of the season you're supposed to do this either... Sorry, I'm a bit useless at this really aren't I?

[Andy Hamilton]

YOu should cut off the seed heads as they from to ensure more growth. I have heard that a toxic compound is formed in Rhubarb after a season, over here you are not supposed to cut any after around july. I tend to leave mine after this point anyway. Mind you one of the blokes on my allotment said that his mother eats rhubarb until it stops producing and has done for years she is 80. NOt sure how toxic it is.

IT might be different down there too due to the climate.

Jo- what you are describing is forcing rhubarb, it makes the rhubarb sweeter - although you are not suposed to do this for more than one season.

[Chickpea]

You've got a couple of different facts muddled up, Andy. Rhubarb leaves contain a toxic substance - oxalic acid - and shouldn't be eaten at all ever. Some authorities advise you to stop picking rhubarb stems after midsummer or so. This is to give the plant a chance to recover, not because it would harm you to eat them. I know people who follow this advice, and their rhubarb plants are very healthy. I also know people who keep picking the rhubarb year round, and their plants are healthy, too. I think it's one of those lovely plants that is very hardy and independent. Once you've got it established it will keep going with very little intervention, and there's not much that can go wrong with it. It doesn't need watering, or weeding, or thinning, or pampering at all, it isn't prone to any diseases, it's ridiculously easy to propagate, and it's a perennial. If only all crops were like that!

[jiggers]

Rhubarb just doesnt taste so good far into summer in my opinion as more light gets to the stalky bits and they are more green and have more of the oxalics, which I am told DO occur in the stalks but not in harmfull quantities. But you get more of that rough feeling on the teeth when the stalks are green and acidic. As many have probably noticed forced rhubarb is very reddy pink, for this reason.

[Millymollymandy]

Oooh rhubarb needs tons of watering! It's really not worth the bother I think for the amount of watering it needs plus the amount of space it takes up.

I'm going to force a couple of my plants in the spring and then dig them up and chuck them.

[Chickpea]

That's interesting. I find the opposite. When I took over my plot there were 4 healthy rhubarb plants that had survived at leat a year of total neglect. I pulled a few stems immediately and took them to my dad and said "These are from my allotment!" We had rhubarb crumble before I had ever put spade to earth.

Over the hot dry summer we had this year I had to do loads of watering on my plot, if I missed a day things would look wilted and sad or even brown and crispy. But I never bothered watering the rhubarb, it happily grew, green and healthy looking, all summer long.

My neighbour also has rhubarb in the very bottom of his garden. He ignores it completely as it is in an awkward spot, and anyway it gives him tummy trouble to eat it. It has been growing healthily for years with no intervention at all.

I wonder why your experience is different MMM? Maybe we have different cultivars. I've no idea what mine is as I didn't put it in. Or maybe mine is longer established, and the plants are more tender when they're young. How old is yours?

[Millymollymandy]

Coming up to two years since I transplanted them. A couple of crowns were 'found' in the garden which I split up and moved into the veg patch.

They aren't particularly nice to eat and have green stringy stems, however as plants they are enormous great triffids, and they just droop if they aren't watered, a lot, at least twice a week in drought time! (which has been both of the summers since I transplanted them).

Could be my dry sandy soil I suppose, but there's been plenty of muck and compost round them.

Or it could be the moles running round their roots.

I dunno! But most of them are getting the boot because they are just too big for the veg patch and I'm fed up with watering them!

[Millymollymandy]

How strange - that emoticon called Evil3 should be a round blue face with an evil look!!!

[Annpan]

Thats odd, my mum has been growing/abandoning rhubarb for decades. Infact once she dug it out and it came back 2 years later (she must have left a bit in the ground I rekon)

She picks it all year round and complains that it never tastes great. I use only the pinkish bits and its always much nicer and less stringy. (its too much effort says my mum )

Anyway it seems to me it is far to easy to grow as it has encouraged my mother to create all sorts of discusting dishes/chutneys. I have decided that she has no taste buds. e.g. "just add coffee whitner to any soup and that makes cream of soup"

Ann

[red]

"just add coffee whitner to any soup and that makes cream of soup"

Ann

that is quite scary in a funny sort of way. Mind you my mum is a great believer of using tins of condensed soup in things...

[Millymollymandy]

Oh yuck - to both! There seem to be a lot of recipes on American recipe sites which add tins of condensed soup, usually mushroom, to all sorts of things. The thought makes me want to barf quite honestly!

[Annpan]

Oh... thats not the half of it, I have been forced to eat all sorts of concoctions made with condesed soup. When I invited a boyfriend round for tea (when I was 18) she served up "sweet and sour fishfingers" all her own recipe She recently boiled avacado and had it with pasta (like a pesto I guess) the she said to me I don't know how you can eat that stuff its revolting.

Back to the rhubarb front she makes tons of rhubarb jam and gives it away, because she doesn't like it?!?!?! It tastes revolting. I always take it just for the jars.

Ann

[Annpan]

I just figured out that I oly have a few more posts to do to change into a Gerry from a Margo

[Annpan]

That ought to do it



sorry it's a bit cheeky

Ann