Your Rockin’ Rhubarb Resource

Despite a decidedly rocky start with rhubarb, I have made a remarkable comeback. Even though I was deceived as a child into believing that my beloved frozen strawberries were in fact rhubarb (and therefore off limits,) I have now gotten to a point where things with scary names aren’t intimidating.  Well, except kohlabi.  Anyone in their right mind would be terrified of kohlrabi.   Any-whoo, back to my personal growth.  I am so totally mature.  I not only grow rhubarb, but I harvest and eat the stuff too.  I’ve even been crowned Her Majesty the Rhubarb Poobah (note: position is self-appointed.)

Yes, I am the proud tender of a healthy crop of rhubarb, the successful propagator of little rhubarbarinos, and the baker of some award-winning rhubarb recipe (note: no awards have actually been awarded.)  Acadia and I pulled the first harvest last week–

She is standing in front of the strawberry patch, which has somehow doubled since last year, and behind that you can see the raspberries and the row of rhubarb.  Funny how my spinach is struggling, my cucumbers are wilting, but the pie-friendly plants are chugging right along.  Even my garden knows dessert comes first.

Do you have questions about when and how to harvest rhubarb?  Click here for a refresher on the facts.  You don’t eat the leaves, just the reddish-green stalks seen here–

You can get an idea of their size in comparison to Acadia’s kindergarten-sized hands–

As long as a few leaves remain on the plant, you will continue to get new growth for a couple of months.  This was our second harvest, only a few days after the first.

After I pull the stalks and cut away the leaves, I rinse and dice the rhubarb.  The inside color varies from light pinkish-white to light green.  The more green it is, the more tart it will taste.

I freeze the chopped pieces flat on a tray before storing them in ziplocs in the freezer.  This makes it easy to add to recipes, which I do as is, in it’s frozen state.  Here’s my favorite thing to do with rhubarb. It’s a super easy recipe and it goes beautifully with vanilla ice cream.

*********************

Notes from the roly-poly front:  The girls are starting to scare me with their mandatory round-up of these guys. The forced participation of all roly-polies born in our yard in the fun and games over at the newly opened roly-poly pavilion just seems excessive.

Here they are, not looking nearly as awful as they do in real life, going for a ride in the tuperware to see Kira’s teacher. Kira wants to know why the parents seem indifferent to the babies, crawling willy-nilly all over them without any special regard for the youngsters.  She didn’t like my answer (um, self-preservation in the face of abusive conditions?) and thinks she’ll get further with her teacher.  Apparently second-grade teachers don’t scream or use sarcasm when asked a simple question about the child-rearing habits of a billion creepy bugs.

• Category: Family, Garden
• Tag: Garden, harvest, rhubarb, roly-poly, spring