Rhubarb
May 2, 2007
It has been a great pleasure to see the newly planted last year rhubarb come up. My husband is so excited and is patiently awaiting the first rhubarb pie. I will can up some as well for use as a sauce in the winter. My pie and canning recipes are on my cooking blog, Mom's Cafe Home Cooking if you are interested. The rhubarb should be ready for first cutting later this weekend.
Rhubarb is an undemanding, easy to care for plant. Most will tell you it is difficult to kill but I can attest to the fact that sometimes it does not like to be moved. I think just about house has a rhubarb patch in this area so it is not often seen in the stores. The stems are edible but the leaves are toxic so keep those away from children and pets. Our kids like to eat the rhubarb as is straight from the garden even when they were little so I had to teach them not to eat the leaves. This is one plant that loves being cut. It will reward you the following year with a larger patch! The plant will benefit from a little epsom salt spred around the base.
I prefer to cut the stems when they are about the diameter of my thumb. That way they are nice and tender. Cut about a half inch above the soil line. Remove leaves then wash and process. Leave the smaller stems to largen then cut as needed repeating the process. With very little effort your rhubard patch will reward you for many years to come.
Happy Gardening!
Garden Gnome
©2007
Your rubarb blog reminds me of our childhood home in northern, NY. Next door was an old maid who was mean as all get out. Or so we thought as children. Isn't there always one in any small town? She had the biggest and best rhubarb in town. It grew along the backside of her attached 4 holer outhouse. Which is another story all itself. Yes, we used to steal the rhubarb even though we had our own patch which wasn't nearly as good as old Ms. Kirby's. She used to chase us off but never did anything but that. I guess she wasn't as mean as we all thought! I would love to grow some here but I don't have enough room for a good sized patch. I love rhuarb and raisin pie. Pies are my fav!!!!
ReplyDeleteI grew up in a small town and now we live on the edge of a small village looking to move to the outskirts of an even smaller village. There are always the following characters: the town slut, the town drunk, the gossip, the witch, the bible thumper and the I need to know everyone else's business. Man the stories I could tell about these characters and not only from my youth! My rhubard is ready for picking so I'm hoping for enough for a pie tomorrow. They smell so good cooking!
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