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Grow & eat

Flowering rhubarb

Posted by: Pippa Greenwood, 08 May 2008, 11.56AM

Rhubarb plant in flower I'm rather fond of rhubarb, preferably under a thick blanket of butter crumble or stewed with a dollop of organic vanilla ice-cream.

We normally have a great crop from our organic kitchen garden, but this year my rhubarb plants are producing flowers instead of the edible stems I love so much.

Rhubarb crowns were some of the first crops we planted in our vegetable garden. I scrounged them from my school friend's dad, who still lives at the end of the road where I was brought up. The crowns he gave us produced bright red, slim, succulent and tasty stems.

But I've just discovered three flower stalks have grown in my rhubarb patch. If left to bloom, they can weaken or even kill the crowns, although I've never had the nerve to let this happen.

I removed the flower stems straight away to encourage the plants to produce more delicious stems. Not one to waste a good flower, however, I put the beautiful blooms in a vase.

Comments

  • 01 January 2007, 12.00AM

    I have moved my rhubarb from my flowering border where the blind lady before me had it close to the door but it doesn't seem to be doing very well it looks very thin and sparse any advice would be welcome thanks

  • Anon

    11 May 2008, 05.05PM

    I have several crowns, one in the garden and several in big pots but they seem to be dying off prematurely, can a crown have a limited life span or are they lacking in nutrients?

  • chris/dave

    12 May 2008, 05.50PM

    I grew rhubarb from seed for my allotment and with 3 seeds I got three lovely plants, but the rhubarb wasn't ready to pick until about september and old hands told me it shouldn't be picked after midsummers day. It was lovely right into october.Now I have had to leave my allotment and my one plant in my garden flowered before anything grew, I snapped it off, it's not recovering very quickly.

  • alicemay

    14 May 2008, 07.13AM

    how can i keep ferral pidgeons out of my garden

  • Matron

    16 May 2007, 08.49AM

    I've tried using the juice from stewed rhubarb and making a bucks fizz with champagne! incredible!

  • Matron

    15 May 2008, 05.31PM

    I've tried using the juice from stewed rhubarb and making a bucks fizz with champagne! incredible!

  • Erica

    15 May 2008, 08.43PM

    Gunnera substitute. I grew a proper crown (like a giant doughnut) for years. A friend had thrown it on his rubbish heap and I made him retreive it. I grew it in dry soil next to a pond mainly for the leaves and the flowers and it flowered every year. I only removed it when I re-shaped my pond. It must have been very old. I don't know the variety. The flower stems were not as high as 'Champagne' but then it was never fed.

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