The Veg Plot

Rhubarb – off with its head

Rhubarb Flower

This rather magnificent monster shot up out of our rhubarb patch last week. It looks alien. And it’s here to take over our rhubarb.

Flowering stalks like this erupt from a rhubarb plant when it’s (a) thirsty, (b) hungry, (c) very large or (d) very old. Ours is probably all four. So we’ll (a) water it, (b) feed it manure, (c) split it in autumn so that (d) we have multiple new plants. But first we need to guillotine the bulbous bloom before it saps energy from the more desirable stalks. We’ll be needing them for another batch of our magnificent rhubarb wine

Rhubarb flower bud

3 Comments

  • We have our 1st batch of rhubarb wine on the go.thankyou for your easy starting recipe.

  • e) It’s totally natural to seed for the plant. It may or may not reduce yield but I’ve never met anybody who said they wish they had some more Rhubarb! Look around any allotment site and you will see hundreds of unharvested Rhubarb plants.

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