Perennial Food Garden Series - Rhubarb

Unlike sunchokes (Jerusalem artichokes), lovage, strawberries, horseradish, Egyptian onions, and Good King Henry, rhubarb is the only vegetable in my Perennial Food Garden Series that cannot be eaten fresh-picked. The huge leaves resemble spinach or kale, but they contain oxalates and are poisonous and cannot be eaten. The long stalks resemble celery, and vary in color from green to bright crimson, but cannot be eaten raw because they contain low amounts of oxalate and the raw taste is extremely sour.

The good news is, the cooked rhubarb stalks are safe to eat and are a versatile vegetable, though they are mainly used as you would use a fruit.

Cooked rhubarb stalks are best known for their use in pies. Rhubarb is the star in two of the classic American summer desserts - rhubarb pie and strawberry/rhubarb pie. But rhubarb is also a gourmet's delight if you are a creative chef that likes to experiment. The texture and abundance of rhubarb, plus the taste it delivers when combined with the right amount of sweeteners and spices produces a delicious variety of absolutely scrumptious relishes, salsas, sauces, compotes, jams, preserves, and chutneys. All of these condiments pair well with poultry and pork. They are also good served warm or cold as accompaniments to dessert, such as drizzled over ice cream or mixed with yogurt.

Strawberry/rhubarb jam is almost as classical as the traditional pie, and is truly a treat, but rhubarb all by itself is a wonderful jam, provided you add plenty of honey and lots of cinnamon. Personally, I like rhubarb jam right out of the jar in a bowl - warm or cold!

Other than the 'no raw eating' factor, rhubarb meets all of the other criteria of the Perennial Food Garden Series - it is prolific, is easily preserved, it reproduces itself, it is hardy, and it will come back every spring in your garden forever with minimal care.

Rhubarb tubers can be obtained very easily at local nurseries, from mail order catalogues, or on-line sources. They can be planted in spring or fall. Rhubarb plants can grow to quite large size - usually about three feet wide by four feet high - so you need a big bed. I have two eight-foot by four-foot rhubarb beds with four plants in each and that is a nice fit.

The rhubarb plants grow fast in the summer if planted in full sunlight. The stalks will continue to grow all summer into the fall. The more you cut the stalks, the more they grow. While in the garden, I like to cut off the huge leaves when I cut the stalks and then place the leaves where needed as mulch. The leaves dry paper-flat and help keep the soil moist around the rhubarb and other plants in the garden. So, though they may not be edible, the leaves are certainly useful!

During the summer, rhubarb will shoot up a large, stiff stalk in the center of the plant that will flower. Some gardeners chop this feathery, tall, white flower off, while others let it grow. I've done it both ways and haven't seen the slightest effect on stalk production. It's not exactly a flower that is attractive enough to bring into the house as a cut flower, and it gets a bit rusty looking if you leave it growing too long, so eventually to keep your garden looking healthy and neat, you'll want to cut it off. The flowers actually contain rhubarb seeds, but since the tubers can be divided and grow plants the first season, growing rhubarb from seeds is not a productive alternative as the time factor is overly long from seed to actual plant.

Rhubarb is extremely easy to preserve. The stalks can simply be cut and frozen as is, or chopped to pie size and frozen in baggies, or cooked into jam or sauce and sealed in sterilized jars. Since I have eight plants, I have massive quantities of rhubarb each summer, which I preserve. It's now March as I write this and I still have two frozen containers of rhubarb left in the freezer from last summer that will last me until the new crop comes in this summer. Rhubarb pie with lemon cream sauce is an Easter favorite - and now every year I always have rhubarb on hand to make it!

Rhubarb is a very hardy garden survivor that anyone can grow - even those that claim to not have a 'green thumb'. In the fall, you can cut it down to the ground, cover with mulch such as straw, hay, or leaves, and despite snow, ice, and below zero temperatures, it will come back in the spring. Rhubarb can also be dug up and transplanted many times and still be productive. In fact it is a good idea to refresh your beds with newly formed 'crowns' cut from the tubers.

To keep plants healthy, I use a good organic food supplement to insure the plants get the nutrients they need. I like the crystals that you can pour into a waterer that attaches to your hose so that you can feed and water at the same time. The water also helps the nutrients soak into the soil.

Rhubarb is self-reproductive in that you can divide the older tubers and plant the crown pieces, which will come up in spring and thrive as new plants. This is truly the basis of any plant selected for a Perennial Food Garden - once you have it, you'll always have it, as it will come back every year.

Let me share with you my experience with rhubarb that has led me to believe that no Perennial Food Garden should be without it.

On my 10-acre farm, the first year I was here I noticed that near the middle of the back yard a small, solitary rhubarb plant was growing. It was a variety that didn't produce red stalks and big dark green leaves, but rather sprouted short pale green stalks and lettuce-size leaves. I mowed around it for the whole summer and harvested only a few stalks for a pie.

That fall, I moved the plant to the side of the barn, just to get it out of the way of the mower. The next summer, I dug up the sod to create a real garden in the sunniest part of the yard and I moved the tubers from this unknown variety to a little section of the garden where they promptly outgrew that plot in a few months. Rhubarb loves sun!

In the fall, I purchased four plants from a Henry Field's Seed & Nursery Company catalogue of a variety called Chipman's Canada Red Rhubarb, which produces deep crimson stalks. I planted them in their own eight by four foot plot.

That summer, I moved the unknown variety to its own four by eight plot next to the Canada Reds, using groupings of crowns to create four 'plants'. I had transplanted this variety three times, but that summer it grew just as huge as the Canada Reds!

I had a monstrous harvest of both the green and red stalks that year, so I began to get creative in the kitchen, coming up with all kinds of condiments. Once you get a feel for how sweet you want your rhubarb and how other ingredients combine with it, you will be surprised at the flavor combinations you'll develop. Of note is that rhubarb really absorbs spices well. Texture is variable too - the stalks can be cooked to a smooth consistency, or left to be a bit chunky, or cooked al dente if larger, firmer pieces are desired.

Rhubarb! Grow it to make classic pie and inventive gourmet condiments in astounding quantities. It's a must-grow plant for your Perennial Food Garden!

The Perennial Food Garden Series highlights fruits, vegetables, and herbs that are easily grown, mature rapidly, are prolific in production, versatile in recipes, and return year after year. The series highlights the top perennials to create a perfect food garden that is economical to start and easy to maintain.

Resources:
www.henryfields.com