One good example is to think of what might taste good with a tart apple and then use rhubarb instead because apples aren't in season when rhubarb is. A salad with granny smith apples? Try it with shaved rhubarb. Another option is to roast rhubarb with honey, adding sweetness to balance out that tartness. You also see a lot of desserts with rhubarb because it adds an interesting flavor and balance to sweet things. Each recipe below only uses ingredients that are in season at the same time as rhubarb, or ingredients that have a year-round season.
Since their season overlaps with the beginning or end of other fruits and vegetables, the recipes are grouped into early season, late season, or anytime they are available. Make this any time rhubarb is in season, as the rest of the ingredients are available year-round.
Rhubarb is in season through July, so enjoy this sandwich in summer when summer veggies start showing up. Great question. I haven't harvested rhubarb in fall myself, but found some reliable resources with some sage advice. First things first, it is completely safe to eat the stalks in fall they do not turn poisonous. But their flavor won't be as good and they are likely tough and fibrous. Lastly, harvesting in fall can weaken the plant and it might die in spring or at least not provide a big harvest, according to the University of Illinois and Iowa State.
Since you mentioned you were from Michigan, you can check out their resources on rhubarb as well. You could try picking just one stalk and see how it tastes. If it is fine with a certain cooking method perhaps stewing? Space roots from 24 to 48 inches apart for good air circulation. In a small garden, plants closer than 36 inches apart will diminish the crop and increase the likelihood of spreading disease. Plant the roots with the crown bud 2 inches below the surface of the soil in good draining soil.
Remove flower stalks as soon as they are observed. When harvesting, one can either pull or cut the petioles from the crown. The second year there can be one light picking if the plant exhibits vigorous growth.
Frosted stalks can still be picked and eaten just as long as they are upright and firm. Plants can be protected in the winter with a mulch of leaves or compost at the depth of 2 or 3 inches. Feed the rhubarb with a cup of fertilizer each spring along with a compost mulch. It is advisable to divide the roots every 5 to 7 years to increase the vigor of the plant. When dividing, make certain to keep 3 to 5 buds in each crown. Only the stalk is eaten.
Do NOT eat the green leaves which are poisonous. Rhubarb is delicious in breads, cookies, pies, cobblers, jams, and sauces or condiments for meat. It can be frozen to be made into any delightful item you desire later. I wonder if you live in that area. My experience has been that it is difficult to grow good rhubarb in Southern California since it often rots in summer and it does not get cold enough in winter to grow pink stalks.
Green stalks are full of oxalic acid. I always try to make it clear that my opinion about growing rhubarb is my own. No one needs to agree with me about rhubarb. My strong opinion on this subject is based on my own experience and that of many other gardeners whom I know but it differs from yours. You are certainly a great rhubarb lover. You have success growing it and I say more power to you to grow plenty of it to enjoy.
I like it too but maybe only eat it once a year, if that. If we discuss Sunset Zones, you might be in Sunset Zone 22 or I think I should admit that part of my prejudice against growing rhubarb might be based on the fact that rhubarb needs to be mixed with a lot of sugar either during or after cooking in order for it to be palatable.
I have eaten some very delicious rhubarb pies in my life but they are not good for me. Not because of kidney stones. But because I gain weight very easily and therefore eat mighty little sugar. This has nothing to do with rhubarb as a garden crop, but I realize it may contribute to my lack of enthusiasm for rhubarb as an organic gardener. I much prefer crops that taste great just as they are without the necessity of adding something else, especially sugar, to make them edible.
Some people are allergic to fava beans too but I nonetheless I strongly promote the growing of fava beans for anyone who is not allergic to them. Once again many thanks for taking the time to write to me and share your good experiences with rhubarb and to share your memories of fields of rhubarb at Knotts Berry Farm. Other sources I can find say that the color of the stalks is not directly related to acid content. Different varieties may range from green to red even when ripe and ready to be eaten.
I highly appreciate your comment and I readily admit that you are probably right about the green stalks not differing in acid content from the pink ones. I am most likely wrong in my opinion, and I will try to change my thinking in that regard. The vegetable Rhubarb Rheum has been adjudicated to be a fruit in the USA though it is not a fruit and consists of various species of the rheum plant that originated in Tibet and China and has been used as a medicine for over 2, years, especially as a laxative.
The root is also used as a dye. Since the 18th century it became popular as a food in Europe and England, because during the 18th century refined sugar became widely available in Europe. Rhubarb was at the height of popularity as a desert during the Second World War because of the ease of cultivation and enough beet sugar was available in England and northern Europe for sweetening it.
Since rhubarb contains oxalic acid and several other sour chemicals, cooked rhubarb is sour and unpalatable without the addition of a large quantity of sugar. That part is not opinion, but fact.
In mild-winter climates rhubarb cannot go into complete dormancy and it often rots in the heat of summer. The best rhubarb comes from northern states of the USA and northern sections of England where it is grown in greenhouses.
Strawberry rhubarb which consists of the forced young stems that are pink is considered the best and is usually greenhouse grown where light and temperature can be controlled. Like you, I have read that pink rhubarb is not healthier than green rhubarb and this is probably scientific truth but I still prefer the pink type.
An opinion is different from truth or factual information. In gardening there are sometimes different opinions since there are many variances. I like pink rhubarb. I seldom eat it, however, since it requires the addition of a great deal of sugar and in my opinion refined white sugar is an unhealthy food and puts on weight quicker than anything else.
My strong prejudice against white sugar may partially explain my prejudice against greenish rhubarb. Children are often attracted to raw plants containing oxalic acid. Though the petioles or stems of rhubarb are okay to eat, the leaves of rhubarb are toxic, and this is not opinion, it is fact. During the Second World War several people died from eating the green tops of rhubarb that had been cooked as a vegetable like spinach. Hearing of these tragic events irrevocably influenced my thinking.
Due to her sensitivity to oxalic acid she suffered several very painful attacks of kidney stones that landed her in the hospital. Rhubarb is native to areas of the world, like interior China and valleys in Tibet, that have far greater temperature extremes than coastal California.
During a cold winter all the stems of rhubarb die down and then in spring the roots send up a lot of fresh tender new pink stems. Frost-free coastal zones of California do not have cold enough winter temperatures to make the plant go dormant and thus it often rots and dies in summer. If you live in the cooler areas of the mountains of Southern California it will grow fine, but if you live in the hot interior your rhubarb will be sent into dormancy in winter but then in summer the roots often rot due to extreme heat.
The statements in the above paragraph are based on 55 years of my own experience and that of local gardeners who shared their stories with me. If there are successful rhubarb growers in Southern California it seems that they live in certain specific areas where the soil and temperatures are just right for rhubarb.
Perhaps you, George, live in such a place. For example, gardeners in certain parts of Anaheim have told me they can grow good rhubarb and these areas are where rhubarb was at one time grown commercially. This is because it is cold enough in winter to force the plants into dormancy and yet a cooling breeze in summer keeps the plants from rotting because the temperature just never gets that hot.
I once met a gardener who lived in a hollow near Rancho Santa Fe that froze every winter and was cool all summer. He raised not great but nonetheless good rhubarb. I also once saw a truck farm where wooden frames with burlap nailed on them were set over the plants in mid-summer to keep them cooler at mid-day. This was many years ago. Some of these old-timey tricks might still be tried by gardeners today, so I pass this along to the rhubarb-loving gardeners among us.
If one lives in an area where the plants go into complete dormancy, mulching the roots in fall and then covering the plants in winter with tall upside-down flower pots might help force pink stems to grow up inside the pots and these pink stems though perhaps not healthier, as you point out, would be nonetheless be aesthetically superior to the coarser green ones.
My rheubarb is in its 4th bearing season. I grows 4 ft tall and one plant is 6 ft in diameter. I harvest as early as May and as late as Nov 15th. I harvest every three weeks and have harvested in excess of leaf petioles each season. My soil is poor so I depend on fertilizer and compost to keep the plant healthy. I bought my plant from Lowes.
Some people have great success growing rhubarb. One key to success is winter chill which sends the plant into dormancy. In the Inland Empire you have enough winter chill.
Good for you! Whatever you are doing, you are doing it right! Claremont, California has superior soil. All you need to add is nitrogen.
You can even use it in pots, which is the only garden soil of which that is true. My garden flourished there and the closeness to Mt Baldy means there are even frosts in winter. Bulbs and roses grew beautifully. Thanks for your comment.
I live less than a half-a-mile from the coast in Santa Monica, Sunset zone 24 and I grow an unknown named, heirloom red stem rhubarb in a community garden.
The plants are growing great, even without going dormant in winter. Where I help them out by snapping off the stalks all the way around the plants, leaving just one or two new leaves, then I mulch my sandy soil and let them be. Freezing the chopped harvest. They grow very large every year some leaves are so big they can be shirts or over sized hats, that I use the leaves as compost.
Thank you for straightening me out regarding rhubarb. But I wonder where you got the heirloom plant that makes good, pink stalks in your Zone 24 climate? I love good rhubarb too but the sugar is a very negative factor for me personally. Sugar makes me sleepy. I really hate the fact that companies put so much of it into breakfast cereals.
I have found only two cold cereals without it: Shredded wheat and Kashi puffed grains.
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