How To Grow Rhubarb

The scientific name for rhubarb is (Rheum rhabarbarum)

Rhubarb is one of the hardier crops, tolerant of cold, frost and wind. It is one of those staple crops you can plant, fertilize, water and walk away from once it’s established. Aesthetically, it adds color and texture to the garden. When planting rhubarb remember that rhubarb leaves are poisonous and that only the stem can be cooked and used.

Rhubarb is sometimes considered a fruit, because it is generally eaten with sweet dishes. Technically, however, it’s a vegetable, appearing in vegetable patches and plots around the country.

Rhubarb enjoys fertile, well-drained soil in full sun and dislikes having wet feet. It doesn’t like sandy soils unless plenty of organic matter has been dug in. Cultivate the soil by digging in composted manure and other compost before planting rhubarb, then add a layer of garden soil. Rhubarb is also happy growing in large pots and containers, making it a ideal portable crop. Fill pots and containers with Tui Vegetable Mix. Rhubarb can also be grown from seed, by dividing existing clumps or purchasing a plant from the garden center. Plants sown from seed take a few years to establish themselves. Sow the rhubarb seeds in trays potting mix in spring, then once a few sets of leaves appear, transfer the rhubarb seedlings into pots or plant in the garden to grow. Plant out 1m apart in the garden once seedlings are at least 10cm tall and look robust. When dividing existing clumps of rhubarb the quickest way is to split pieces off the roots of an existing rhubarb plant in spring. To do this, slice through the plant’s crown with a sharp spade or long knife. Plant the whole section in the ground or in a pot (that is bigger than the offcut). Once the plant begins to put down roots, new leaves will appear.

The rhubarb leaf stalk is used in pies, tarts, sauces, jams, jellies, puddings, and punch. Although categorized as a vegetable, rhubarb is used as a fruit because its high acidity gives it a tart flavor. Only the stalks or petioles should be eaten, because the leaves contain moderately poisonous oxalic acid.

Planting site

Select a site that receives at least six hours of direct sun each day. Avoid shady sites near trees and shrubs. Rhubarb will have a difficult time competing for sunlight, water, and nutrients when planted near trees and shrubs

Life span

Rhubarb is a perennial plant, meaning it will come back year after year on it’s own. Once you have an established plant or two, very little maintenance is reԛuired. Most rhubarb plants have a 7-10 year life expectancy, although some plants will last even longer. Rhubarb is usually grown in a traditional vegetable garden. Because of the large size of mature plants, it is generally not suitable for container gardening.

Hardiness of Rhubarb plant

Rhubarb plants love cold weather. They thrive in areas where the ground freezes in the winter time. The plants generally do not grow well in warm climates. They require well-drained, fertile soil and mostly full sun to reach their full potential. Rhubarb plants can reach 4-5 feet or more in diameter. Because of their size and longevity, careful consideration should be taken in choosing a suitable location for your rhubarb plants(s). Rhubarb is a vegetable, not a fruit. It is commonly used as a fruit in sauces, pies, cookies, bars,

Caring for Rhubarb

Mulch generously with a heavy layer of straw and cow manure to provide nutrients for the plant, retain moisture, and discourage weeds.

• Water your plant well. It needs sufficient moisture during the summer.
• Remove seed stalks as soon as they appear.
• After the first spring frost, apply a light sprinkling of a high-nitrogen fertilizer (25-3-3 or 10-6-when the ground is thawing or has just thawed so that the fertilizer will go into the ground and not harm the roots. See your local frost dates. Insects and diseases won’t bother rhubarb plants as long as you keep the plants weed-free.
• Dig and split rhubarb roots every 3 to 4 years. Divide when plants are dormant in early spring (or fall). cakes, and famous dessert crisps and crumbles!
• Do not harvest any stalks during the first growing season so that your plants can become established.
• Harvest the stalks when they are 12 to 18 inches long. Usually, after 3 years, the harvest period runs 8 to 10 weeks long. If the stalks become thin, stop harvesting; this means the plant’s food reserves are low.
• Grab the base of the stalk and pull it away from the plant with a gentle twist. If this doesn’t work, you can cut the stalk at the base. Be sure to discard of the leaves!
• Always leave at least 2 stalks per plant to ensure continued production. You may have a bountiful harvest for up to 20 years without having to replace your rhubarb plants.
• After harvest time, the stems may die back. Just remove all plant debris. Once your ground freezes, it’s best to cover rhubarb with 2 to 4 inches of mulch, preferably well-rotted compost; by adding nitrogen to the soil, you’re preparing the rhubarb plants for a good spring season.

Pests/Diseases

• Crown rot

Harvesting of Rhubarb

The best time when to harvest rhubarb is when the stalks of the leaves reach at least 10 inches long. This will ensure that the plant has established itself well enough for the year to be able to tolerate being harvested. You can take some of the rhubarb stalks earlier than this, but limit your rhubarb harvest to just a few stalks so that you do not kill the plant. Knowing when to harvest rhubarb also means knowing when the season is over. While technically, you can keep harvesting rhubarb until fall, keep in mind that your rhubarb plant needs to store energy for the winter. Significantly slow or stop your rhubarb harvest in late June or early July so that your rhubarb plant can build up energy stores to make it through the winter. Again, it can be picked until the frost, but do so sparingly or you risk killing the plant. Also, if your rhubarb, is newly planted, you will want to wait two years before taking a full rhubarb harvest from the plant. This will ensure the plant is sufficiently established.

How To Harvest Rhubarb Plant.

How to Harvest Rhubarb Harvesting rhubarb isn’t difficult either. There are two ways how to harvest rhubarb. One is to use a sharp knife or shears to cut off stalks that are at least 10 inches or longer. The second is to gently pull the stalk while gently leaning it to one side until the stalk breaks off from the plant. Never harvest all the stalks off your rhubarb plant. After you cut the stalks from the plant, cut the leaves from the stalk and throw them in the compost bin. The leaves of the rhubarb plant are poisonous and should never be eaten. That is all there is to harvesting rhubarb. Now that you know when and how to harvest rhubarb, you can enjoy these tasty stalks in a wide variety of recipes.

Uses of Rhubarb

• Different varieties of rhubarb produce different shades of red to pink to greenish rhubarb stalks, however all are equally suitable for eating.
• Most commonly rhubarb is cooked, stewed, or baked into pies, breads, muffins, cakes, and other scrumptious desserts. In many recipes, rhubarb is often combined with another fruit, such as raspberries, strawberries, blueberries or peaches. When combined with other fruits, rhubarb needs less actual sugar to take away the tartness.
• Rhubarb is also commonly made into amazing rhubarb jams, rhubarb jellies, and punch and smoothie rhubarb drinks.
• Rhubarb can be preserved by freezing rhubarb or by canning rhubarb.
• Since rhubarb is actually a vegetable it is no surprise that many amazing rhubarb dinner recipes exist, of which rhubarb chili is my favorite! Other supper recipes for rhubarb include: Fish Rhubarb Dinners, Beef Rhubarb Dinners, Pork Rhubarb Dinners, Chicken Rhubarb Dinners, and Lamb Rhubarb Dinners.
• Rhubarb can also be used to make rhubarb wine.
• Rhubarb leaves can be used to make an natural insecticide.
• Fresh picked rhubarb (leaves removed) will stay fresh in the refrigerator for 3 – 5 days.
• When cooking with rhubarb, it is best to use “non-reactive” cookware that does not react with the acid in the rhubarb. Teflon or stainless-steel cookware is preferable over aluminum and copper. Cooking rhubarb in aluminum or copper may cause “stains” on the pans.

Rhubarb is one of the only two vegetables that grows continues to grow, and propagate unlike other vegetables that need to be sown each year. The other perennial vegetable is asparagus.

Wild Rhubarb is not to be confused with garden varieties of rhubarb. Wild Rhubarb is another name for Common burdock, a weed which looks somewhat similar to rhubarb in appearance, but is not edible.

Cooking with Rhubarb

Rhubarb is a sour-tasting plant, which can be combined with sugar to make delicious recipes. Although this plant was originally grown for its medicinal properties, it has been a famous pie ingredient since the early 1900s. The first recorded recipes for it date back to the 1600s in England and this is when sugar became widely available.

This ingredient is dipped into sugar and eaten raw in Sweden, parts of the UK and some other countries. It makes an economical sweet snack. You can also use this fruit to make wine.

You can make a delicious dessert by cutting rhubarb stalks into one inch pieces and boiling them in water. Add half a cup or three ԛuarters of a cup of white sugar for every pound of rhubarb. You will not need much water because there is a lot in the fruit itself. Add some nutmeg or cinnamon to taste and a tablespoon of lemon juice or lime juice if you like.

When the stalks are soft, they are done. A slightly different cooking method is to simmer the fruit slowly without adding water and let it cook in its own juice instead. You can add apples or strawberries while cooking it, to make it sweeter, or add some ginger if you want to make jam.

Making Homemade Jam

You can also add other kinds of fruits to the mixture to make jam. If you are using ones, which do not contain much pectin, you might need to add some. Pectin is what makes the jam set. For jam, use two ounces of fruit for every ounce of rhubarb. Choose from plums, apples, apricots, raspberries or strawberries. You will need to boil the mixture for ten minutes or more, until everything is soft.

Making Sauce Or Pie Filling

Rhubarb sauce is another popular recipe and to make this you will need to simmer the above mixture for about an hour or until it is smooth and you can pierce all the fruit easily with a fork. You can keep the resulting sauce in the refrigerator and eat it cold. Cook it for twenty minutes, instead of an hour, if you want to make a tart filling or pie filling. You can add strawberries to it if you want to make strawberry and rhubarb pie.

Recipe For Rhubarb Cake

Ingredients

1. 1 cup brown sugar
2. 3/4 cup white sugar
3. 1 1/2 cups finely chopped raw rhubarb
4. 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5. 2 cups all-purpose flour
6. 1 teaspoon baking soda
7. 1 cup applesauce
8. 1 egg
9. 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
10. 1/2 cup butter
11. 1/2 teaspoon salt

Preparation Directions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Cream the butter with the brown sugar and half a cup of the white sugar, then add the salt and egg. Stir in the vanilla extract, flour, applesauce, and baking soda.

Stir in the fruit and pour the batter into a prepared nine by thirteen inch baking pan. Sprinkle the cinnamon and remaining white sugar over the top. Bake the cake for about half an hour. It is really moist so you will not need to frost it.

Harvesting of Rhubarb

The best time when to harvest rhubarb is when the stalks of the leaves reach at least 10 inches long. This will ensure that the planet has established itself well enough for the year to be able to tolerate being harvested. You can take some of the rhubarb stalks earlier than this, but limit your rhubarb harvest to just a few stalks so that you do not kill the plant. Knowing when to harvest rhubarb also means knowing when the season is over. While technically, you can keep harvesting rhubarb until fall, keep in mind that your rhubarb plant needs to store energy for the winter. Significantly slow or stop your rhubarb harvest in late June or early July so that your rhubarb plant can build up energy stores to make it through the winter. Again, it can be picked until the frost, but do so sparingly or you risk killing the plant. Also, if your rhubarb is newly planted, you will want to wait two years before taking a full rhubarb harvest from the plant. This will ensure the plant is sufficiently established.

How To Harvest Rhubarb Plant.

How to Harvest Rhubarb harvesting rhubarb isn’t difficult either. There are two ways how to harvest rhubarb. One is to use a sharp knife or shears to cut off stalks that are at least 10 inches or longer. The second is to gently pull the stalk while gently leaning it to one side until the stalk breaks off from the plant. Never harvest all the stalks off your rhubarb plant. After you cut the stalks from the plant, cut the leaves from the stalk and throw them in the compost bin. The leaves of the rhubarb plant are poisonous and should never be eaten. That is all there is to harvesting rhubarb. Now that you know when and how to harvest rhubarb, you can enjoy these tasty stalks in a wide variety of recipes.