rhubarb pies all winter long (Rhubarb)

Member Name: barbie84

Product:	Rhubarb
Date:	10/03/08 (80 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: a brilliantly hardy plant

Disadvantages: leaves are poisonus

We have a lovely rhubarb plant in our vegetable garden, i brought it from B&Q 3 years ago for £3.50.

I have planted it in a very sunny spot as rhubarb needs a lot of direct sunlight, it didnt grow very well for the first two years but last summer we had a lovely crop of rhubarb off the plant.

You can cut the stems of rhubarb off as soon as they are ready which is usually april to august, at the begining of the season they are sofer getting more stringy as they get older.

Cut off any flowers that appear as they are a waste of the plants energy that could be used to grow the rhubarb.

I have never trimed the leaves back on mine but do cut off any rhubarb left at the begining of august , my rhubarb plant has come back stronger and stronger every year and is now getting stems of about 2 foot and hopefully in a few more weeks it will be looking lovely and ready to start eating again.

I dont use any fertilisers on mine but manuer is recomended but i didnt like the idea of eating something that had been near poo so i use a tomato feed instead which seems to do the job briliantly.

One thing to remember with rhubarb though is that the leaves cannot be eaten as they are poisonus.

Dont worry if you have lots of rhubarb left over in august as you can boil this and freeze it for use through the winter.

Summary: a brilliant yielding plant once established that comes back each year