Rhubarb Comeback

When it comes to food gardening, whether you’re a newbie or have been doing it forever, I like to call rhubarb the perfect crop!

It’s super easy to grow: Spread a little compost around the crown once or twice a year, keep it reasonably well watered and weeded, and you’re rewarded with loads of rosy-pink stalks. 

Rhubarb will continue to grow being potted up for a while, and also tolerates transplanting fairly well.

Although voles will eat the roots, it doesn’t have much in the way of other pests. Plus raising your own rhubarb saves you money! At our local co-op, organic rhubarb is $4.99/lb. Ouch!

It’s easy to process too, and can be used in both sweet and savory recipes. So as a staple food crop, you really can’t go wrong with rhubarb…

Only you actually can.

I’ve gone wrong the last few years with my four crowns. With lots of outside family commitments, I fell down on the job with weeding. A few seasons with weed overwhelm, and the crowns’ production declined significantly. 

I figured my rhubarb, now over 15 years old, was at the end of its life span. I would clearly need to buy brand new crowns from the nursery and start over.

Last summer, one looked especially bad, pretty much near death’s door. So I said a regretful “Sayonara” and tore out all the roots, which I talked about in my previous “Garden Explosion” post. I even mulched the whole area with some scraps of lumber, to kill the surrounding weeds. 

I made sure that crown would be a goner.

However…despite the advanced age of my three remaining crowns of rhubarb, last fall I finally took on the horsetail and buttercup invasion around them, and spread some compost to cover the drip line. And what do you know…

This spring’s crop is the best I’ve had in years! 

Processing rhubarb—all you need is a sharp knife!

From my three producing crowns, I picked 52 stalks. Cut into cubes courtesy of my husband John, the processed crop produced four and a half quarts. 

The little crown that could—the fourth rhubarb crown I tore out and is now coming along nicely—won’t produce any kind of crop this year and very likely not next year either. But I’m going to treat it right this summer!

Rhubarb rising from the dead and now chugging along

I’m heading out to the garden shortly, to give this baby restarted crown lots of compost. After I weed the three other harvested ones, they’ll get some top-dressing as well. 

So when life gets crazy and you’ve had to neglect your perennial food crops—with a little TLC, you may find they can bounce back!