Rhubarb harvest

[PJW_Letchworth]

I spent the last hour of day light on the allotment this evening and I have to tell you about the rhubarb.  I've never forced mine so am always suprised when I get such an early crop.  This evening I pulled 14 sticks which weigh in at 5lbs, the heaviest being 10oz.  This is my second harvest, the first being 7 sticks and 2lbs.  Tomorow I start making rhibarb and ginger jam.  I'm sure there were more I could have taken but it was dark and thought better of pulling more when I grabbed hold of a stray bramble.  :o

Has anyone else managed such a good crop?  I put mine down to having 2-3" of home made compost piled up around the crowns in the autumn.  Come spring, the compost has dropped a fair bit and the rhubarb thrives.

[PJW_Letchworth]

[PurpleHeather]

I have two varieties, both given to me (motto, never buy what you can acquire legally)

One is early we never force either and we have had loads. I rarely bother to weigh things.

The other is coming along nicely.

I must say that the early one is the nicer of the two.

[Robert_Brenchley]

Mine's getting to the point where I could justify pulling some, but I'll leave it for a couple of weeks yet. I had my strongest drowned (literally) by the waterlogging two summers ago, and I'm going a bit easy on it for the moment until I've regrown it all.

[PJW_Letchworth]

The rhubarb is now made into jam, cooling in the jars as I type.  Roll on tomorrow when the fresh bread is still warm and the butter soft!

[ceres]

I forced one crown and started pulling it about 3 weeks ago, have had 2 lots about 20 sticks in total.

Started pulling the unforced just over a week ago and got @ 100 sticks.  Gave about one third away and jammed/crumbled/stewed/caked the rest.  If we have some rain, there will be another load ready next week.

[GrannieAnnie]

You're way ahead of us- ours has just broken through the ground.
But I did make a rhubarb pie yesterday with 2008 frozen stalks and it was wonderful.

One problem mine gets is it produces the flower stalks early which I cut off-
wondering if our heavy soil creates that problem??

[GrannieAnnie]

You're way ahead of us- ours has just broken through the ground.
But I did make a rhubarb pie yesterday with 2008 frozen stalks and it was wonderful.

One problem mine gets is it produces the flower stalks early which I cut off-
wondering if our heavy soil creates that problem??

IGNORE ABOVE- I just noticed the posting on rhubarb seed heads a bit further down on the forum. Thank you and happy digging.

[emmak]

The rhubarb is now made into jam, cooling in the jars as I type.  Roll on tomorrow when the fresh bread is still warm and the butter soft!

Please please could I have your recipe for Rhubarb and ginger Jam!

[PJW_Letchworth]

I got the recipe from here...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/larkrise/kitchen/rhubarbandgingerjam.shtml

Instead of ctiric acid, I used the juice of two lemons.  The jam is not thick set but is not runny enough to fall off the bread.  Anyway, it's so nice it doesn't stay on the bread long enough before being eaten.

Happy cooking!

[tonybloke]

we had our first rhubarb crumble today
;)

[Barnowl]

This may well sound daft, but how do you know when to harvest it?

[hopalong]

Had to pick some flowerheads off one of my Champagne rhubarb plants this morning. Never experienced that before.

[littlebabybird]

i thought i was getting a little daft (er) seeing
fowers on mine this week
lbb

[Barnowl]

Had to pick some flowerheads off one of my Champagne rhubarb plants this morning. Never experienced that before.

One of our two champagne (planted last year) built up a flowerhead (the other kept on being dug up - presumably by a fox - so is behind).

Wonder if it's a response to the dry weather?

Anyway what about my question : how do you know it's ready for harvest?

[saddad]

As soon as it is big enough to use Barnowl...  :)

[Borlotti]

I will definately try that rhubarb jam recipe. Thanks.

[debster]

ate my first rhubarb today there was lots of it and it was delicious ;D

[Multiveg]

we had our first rhubarb crumble today
;)

Made ours on the last day of March. Yum.

[hopalong]

Had to pick some flowerheads off one of my Champagne rhubarb plants this morning. Never experienced that before.

Anyway what about my question : how do you know it's ready for harvest?

When there are enough stalks and they're big enough to eat. Small ones often taste better, but you don't want to destroy the plant by picking all or most of them at once. And, like asparagus, rhubarb should be harvested little or not at all in its first year while it builds up its strength.

[PJW_Letchworth]

This may well sound daft, but how do you know when to harvest it?

I tend to wait until the sticks are a substantial size but I guess it depends on the variety.  I try not to pull them until they're at least the thickness of my thumb.  The last few I pulled were about 16" long, the heaviest was 10ozs.

The picture is not fantastic, but have a look at my website and scroll to the bottom of the page.

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/phillworboys/the_plot/season2009/marapr.html