Common Names: Rhubarb
Origin: Asia
- Colourful stemmed, broad-leafed plant
- Great for jam and winemaking and desserts
- Easily propagated
Rhubarb is a popular, hardy garden vegetable. Rheum grows into a medium-size bushy plant with green or red fruity stems and large deep green leaves. A good stand-by for the kitchen garden that crops well for up to five years before needing to be divided.
These days Rhubarb comes in a few different varieties with either juicer or very colourful stems
Plant Type: Vegetable, Herbaceous perennial
Uses: Jam-making, Winemaking, Desserts & Baking
Garden Types: Pots & Containers, Edible Garden
Care
Sun Requirements: Plant in full sun to part shade, but protect from hot afternoon suns.
Water Requirements: Keep well-watered. Do not allow to dry out of become water-logged.
Soil Requirements: Requires rich well drained soil. Dislikes wet ground.
Fertilizing: Grow in well composted soil. Give regular fruit and vegetable fertiliser when fruiting. Heavy feeder.
Pruning: Cut off any dead or rotting stems and leaves.
Tolerances: Frost, full sun.
Diseases: Snails, beetles. Leaves are inedible for humans.
Sow: Seeds are planted in spring or summer. Alternatively, plant crowns, with roots, in rich well drained soil with growing buds just above soil. Divide after four or five years.
Key Features
Flower: Pink or white on long flower spikes. Remove immediately as they exhaust the crowns.
Foliage: Large green leaves that are toxic
Fruit / Stem: Long green stems that mature to red. Some varieties produce colours of yellow, white and purple. The stems are harvested in spring to autumn by pulling the stems downwards, working from the outside of the plant and leaving some standing to mature.
Edible: Stems only
Toxicity: Leaves are toxic.
Attracts: N/A
