Moved to a house with a gigantic rhubarb plant. When to harvest?
by llikegiraffes
Moved to a house with a gigantic rhubarb plant. When to harvest?
by llikegiraffes
4 Comments
If this is current then it’s well past harvesting now. It’s best to catch it early in the season and pull any emerging flower pods before they get too big. You can harvest it a bit at a time until it starts getting tough, which it will as it starts getting hotter and especially after it has bolted like it has in your picture.
Now, you lucky son of a gun! Leave the lower scrappy ones and a few new ones to shade and support its winter hibernation!
Looks like this rhubarb could do with a few buckets of water, first of all. It might be in a too sunny spot to leave it to its own devices but with regular watering rhubarb can stand quite a lot of heat.
Harvesting is done by twisting and pulling a leaf, not by cutting it.
Whenever a flower emerges, take it out. While beautiful, the flowers take energy that the plant can’t use for growing leaves. While people believe the plant to become toxic when in flower, there’s no actual science to back that up. Even when not in flower, small children and people with kidney ailments should take care not to eat too much rhubarb.
Mark the spot where the plant grows. It will die back in winter. Under the surface it will gather strength to put out new leaves in spring.
You may want to try and [force your rhubarb](https://www.daviddomoney.com/how-to-make-a-homemade-rhubarb-forcer/#gsc.tab=0). I’ve not trained ed this myself yet, but I will at some point.
Note that rhubarb likes a good hit of compost early in the season too.