Ruud Kleinpaste: Growing rhubarb

Rhubarb  This is a great crop if you’re into crumbles and fruity bits for breakfast with muesli and yoghurt and soaked sultanas, and dessert’s like Nici Wickes’ Rhubarb and Vanilla Bread and Butter Pudding. Rhubarb is pretty easy to grow. It can stand quite a bit of frost. I saw it growing in Mongolia’s permafrost, and in the deserts with big weta-like critters hiding underneath!  In really cold areas it will go dormant in winter, and in hot summers it might take a break. In hotter areas it might pay to allocate a cooler spot and some shade for the warmest period of the day to stop it “bolting”. That leaves excellent growth in spring, early summer, late summer and autumn.   It requires a sunny location and nice fertile free-draining soil. If you’ve got heavy clay soil, break it up and add heaps of compost to make it friable. Alternatively, plant it above the soil level in a raised bed. I reckon you can even grow it in a big container with good mix, but keep it well-watered.   Rhubarb loves compost and manure (yes – some rotted cow poo/sheep/pig or horse – preferably gone through a composting cycle).   Keep the plant base free of weeds. Pests and diseases are usually of no great concern, slugs and snails are your main problem and they will only go on the leaves. Copper sprays may prevent leaf-spots, but they’re not a big deal, usually.  
To Harvest: cut the stems for consumption and use leaves in compost bins. Alternatively, the large leaves are great on the ground as “weed mat”.   Look around for various cultivars – if you are lucky you might find some of the old-fashioned bright red varieties that look fantastic: Moulin Rouge; Crimson Crumble; Cherry Red; Ruby Red; Glaskin’s Perpetual...but in terms of TASTE, they all taste the same. 
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