Rhubarb growing tips

I’ve grown rhubarb in my gardens for 35 years, and pulled plenty of it from mom’s gardens when I lived at home.

Rhubarb prefers rich soil, because it’s a heavy feeder, it takes a lot from the soil. Here’s how I grow it in my gardens.

Remember, if you plant rhubarb in the vegetable garden, you’ll want it where you don’t dig or till year after year. My mom plants rhubarb in her large perennial flower beds. I plant mine on the edge of my vegetable garden or around my raised beds, or wherever I want something big, leafy and green in the summertime.

• Dig a bigger hole than you need, and toss in some compost or composted manure. Rhubarb roots get very big.

• Plant so the crown is just below the surface of the soil.

• I always mulch with straw, dried leaves, weeds or garden plants that I pull near it. I also cut the leaves off right at the plant, after I pull the rhubarb, and mulch with the rhubarb leaves. My grandma and mom always did that. I do too.

• Don’t harvest from a new plant. Let it go the first year. Depending how well it grows, you might be able to harvest a few stalks the second year. After that, it should provide you with plenty of stalks.

• I have lots of plants, so I never over-harvest my rhubarb. The leaves provide nutrients to the roots, so you don’t want to pull all of your plant, all the time. The most I harvest at one time is 2/3s and that’s early in the season, IF I’m making rhubarb pie for everyone in the county, or more likely, freezing or preserving it.

• Late in the summer, if I get a hankering for something rhubarb-y, I’ll harvest a few stalks here and there. Often, I mix it with apple or cherry or strawberry. You want the plant to go into fall and winter with plenty of energy reserves, otherwise over time, your plant will get weaker, instead of more robust!

• Maintenance: I weed around my rhubarb plants, mulch, and water if we have a long, hot, dry spell.

• Rhubarb does need a winter freeze to grow well.

• If I decide to move a rhubarb plant, I usually divide it at that time, and often end up with multiple plants.

Rhubarb is pretty hard to kill, once you get it established. My dad once tilled a garden plot for my brother, before the rhubarb was up that season, and ended up spreading rhubarb roots throughout the garden. They had little rhubarb plants coming up all over the place!

Enjoy. Ask questions if you have them. Rhubarb is one of my favorite perennial plants in the garden.

Your rhubarb loving friend,
Anne Dovel - The Fit Quilter