Rhubarb a Unique Flavor From Your Garden

I had never tasted rhubarb till we moved to our farm and I discovered something that I thought might be rhubarb growing under some concord grape vines. I had heard of it and seen it, but I literally had never tasted it or even contemplated tasting it. I suspect most people are in the same boat with regard to rhubarb. Well after some research, which included calling the farm's previous owners, we decided that we did have rhubarb and tried some.

On first try we ate it in a strawberry rhubarb pie, which we really did not like that much, so we tried the straight rhubarb pie. This was a success. It was also a taste that I had never imagined existed. It is unique. Right now there is about a third of a rhubarb pie in the fridge, and I really want to go get some, but I already had my piece and do not want to be a rhubarb hog, because the whole family loves rhubarb in one form or another.

We have three types of rhubarb growing in our gardens, Valentine, Victoria, and our own "Farm Found" variety that no one really knows from where it originated. The Valentine is a solid dark red color, the Victoria is generally green but has some red in it, and this varies from plant to plant. I have one Victoria plant that is almost all red. Our Farm Found variety is mostly all red, but the red is not as dark as that of the Valentine.

The Valentine is the sweetest of the three, but still has a bit of tartness to it. The Victoria is the tartest of the three. You need to add some extra sugar if you make a pie with all Victoria, especially if it is mostly green. The Farm Found reminds me of a candy I had as a kid, Sweet Tarts, because it is a bit sweet and a bit tart. If I had to pick just one variety it is the one that I would pick, but since I don't have to pick just one we mix all three into everything we make with rhubarb.

You eat the stalks or stems, they kind of look like celery stems with leaves on the end. The leaves are a bit poisonous. The have a high oxalic acid level in them, but don't get worked up about this, just throw them away. Don't mix them in your compost. I just throw them in a particular spot on the edge of the woods. I believe you would have to eat a whole lot of them to do any harm, and I doubt you would want to eat a whole lot of them.

You can grow rhubarb from seed or from pieces of the roots. The root planting will give you an exact copy of the plant you divided it from, this is probably the best way to get the particular characteristics you are looking for. If you plant seeds you will get varying characteristics in the plants, which is okay. You might get a really great plant, or you might not be so lucky.

If I want to divide a plant to get a new plant, I do it in the spring. I just use a shovel and put it straight down through the plant where I want to divide it, and lift out the part of the root and the dirt. You only need a piece two or three inches wide and the length is as far down as you want to dig. Usually the pieces you get if you order from a nursery are about 2 inches wide on top and about three to four inches long. They call these pieces crowns. You can tell the top by the beginnings of the curled up leaves on it.

We live in Pennsylvania in the Allegheny Mountains, and our growing zone is on the colder end of zone 5. The rhubarb we plant is definitely hardy enough for our climate. It always comes up no matter how cold the winter was, and I do not mulch it for winter. Rhubarb is a perennial which is one of the things I love about it. No planting required each year, and I get to eat it with very little effort.

It grows well in full sun, but it will also do okay in partial sun or filtered sunlight from some light tree cover. I have never had anything bother it except deer. I now keep it all fenced from the deer, though I did have some out in the open for a while before I fenced it in, and they did not bother it that much. There are not insect, fungus, or other problems that I know of. It is a zero spray plant.

It does need fertilized though. I just start putting cow manure around it once I'm done gardening in the fall. I also put some wood ashes around it, just dumping my ash bin along the row with the manure. Before I had cows I just bought 10-10-10 fertilizer and sprinkled it around the plants very early in the spring. It worked fine.

My wife makes delicious pies and cookies with our rhubarb, and she also makes a sauce that is great on breakfast crepes or pancakes. I love crepes made with our own eggs and our own rhubarb sauce. I feel like I'm in a fancy French restaurant when I eat the crepes with rhubarb sauce. It is outstanding. A thing that surprised me about the rhubarb was how our kids loved it even when they were babies. They prefer it to maple syrup on pancakes, and we have awesome real maple syrup.

We harvest ours when they get about the size of a medium stalk of celery. You don't cut them. You just pull the stalk out/away from the plant, and they break off just like celery does from the bunch. The plant will keep growing more for a month or two as long as it has water and it doesn't get extremely hot. We have harvested ours through most of the summer, if it is a cool one. We watch though, because we don't want to over-harvest it and weaken or kill the plant. We also let it grow out once fall approaches to built up energy in the roots for the spring.

It is good to keep it fairly weed free, but a little bit of grass or whatever will not hurt much. I weed mine from time to time. You have to be careful not to pull off the young stalks when you are weeding. They are delicate and will break off easily.

One issue is the seed heads or bolting. Some plants like Victoria are prone to produce seeds. Others like Valentine or our Farm Find usually do not produce seed heads. I have heard to just ignore the seed heads and keep harvesting your stalks, and I have read to immediately cut the seed stalks down to ground level.

I have tried both ways. I think it is best to cut them off unless you want to collect some seeds. You seem to get more stalks to eat and for a longer period of time when you cut off the seed stalks. This year I kept two plants in seed, a Victoria and a Valentine. This was my first Valentine to go to seed. The rest we cut, though a bit late as you can see in the video. However we had some rain after cutting the seed stalks, and the rhubarb are growing like crazy again.

Rhubarb is a great plant to grow. It is easy to grow. It can be grown without any pesticides or fungicides. Once planted it can last for decades, and you just split it to get a new plant whenever you want one. I like having different varieties. I like the mixture of tastes in our rhubarb pies, cookies and sauces. For us it is usually the second "fruit" of spring. We get it about a week or so after we start getting asparagus. We usually are eating rhubarb by about the third week in April. If you have never tried it I think you are in for a pleasant surprise when you do.