Dorie’s Different Reality

Rhubarb

Hail, First Fruit of Spring!
Vernal Stalks of Crimson Joy
Source of Pies and Cake

Environmental Disaster of Epic Proportions! I’ve been watching and waiting for the rhubarb out back to get big enough to start picking! The way rhubarb “works” is the stalks come out of the ground and you pull them away from the plant. Usually, you get to harvest them for a few weeks. After that, the remaining stalks are tall and send up “flowers” going to seed, so to speak. The stalks become rather dry, not tender, and the plant just continues to grow to bring you more goodness next year.

Well, golly, we’ve been having these mild winters and this was the mildest one yet. I don’t think we had but two snow days; followed immediately by temperatures above freezing. I did not shovel one bit of snow this year. Good for me because I don’t like doing it anyhow! I don’t think I even had to chip ice off the car windshield this year.

Today, I went out to check on the rhubarb. There are flower pods all over it. It’s like it’s going to seed as it comes out of the ground! I’ll be lucky to get enough for 2 pies! I’d have to decapitate the whole plant to stop the rhubarb flower explosion. (It’s not a pretty flower btw; just the way it reproduces.) If I make any jam this year I’ll have to buy the rhubarb at the Farmer’s Market- probably imported from someplace North of here!

Rhubarb is one hardy son of a gun. Some varieties can withstand cold temperatures of -50 F. I bought this nice bunch of plants a few years ago from a nursery in a cold place; South Dakota I think. But we had rhubarb when I was growing up in California and I don’t remember it bolting like this so there must be varieties that tolerate warmer weather. For one thing, the rhubarb you’ll see in the store is called “hot house” rhubarb- and the greenhouse has to stay above freezing. Wonder how I can get some of that? Seeing as we’re having a greenhouse effect and all.

One thing I did do. I searched around on Ebay for rhubarb. There weren’t too many plants for sale and the shipping charges were rather high. One person who sells “heirloom” seeds, was selling a variety called German Rhubarb. To show you how Dorie Logic works: I have never heard of blizzards in Germany, but they have them in South Dakota. So I thought I’d try this variety out and ordered a packet of 25 seeds- gonna grow my own.

If I do end up with 25 rhubarb plants, I’ll share them. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

This entry was posted on Friday, April 11th, 2008 at 5:12 pm and is filed under Gardening. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.