I’m thinking ahead to spring when it gets so frigid that you want to bring the cows in!! One of the first crops we see here in mid to late May is rhubarb. A lot of folks don’t like rhubarb because its so tart but I have a remedy for that. Before I give you that little tidbit let me tell you what I did last summer before the first leaves of rhubarb showed itself.
For two years I had not cut as much rhubarb as I thought there should have been. I used a huge tractor tire for the rhubarb bed because moles kept eating the tubers when I planted them directly in the ground. I placed the tire on the edge of the garden where it would get lots of son and on top of some heavy black garden fabric that I folded to fit several times to keep the moles out. It worked!
The tire was filled with good soil and chicken litter and four rhubarb tubers. The tubers produced but the stems were thin and spindly. In the spring of 2018 I decided to thin the tubers and see if that helped and I was also concerned that maybe I had amended the soil with too much litter. I cleaned up two more areas on both sides of the tire of weeds and only amended that soil with some rabbit litter but not much!
This area was filled with two tubers of rhubarb taken from the first tire.
This area was filled with tubers from some old plants from our Ruble farm and some from the mansion garden.
Neither of these areas produced anything but I kept them moist and sprinkled with epsom salt in hopes of new rhubarb patches in spring 2019.
The original tire went crazy!! I took off three batches of rhubarb and we have plenty in the freezer for the coming year and the year after that.
Early batches of the thinned patch proved to be the best move I could have made!
Three fresh baskets of rhubarb and homemade rhubarb freezer jam!!
Now for my recipe for the freezer rhubarb jam:
5-6 c. of fresh rhubarb, cut in 1″ cubes
Water, just enough to keep the rhubarb from sticking in sauce pan
2 c. sugar
1 3 oz. pkg. of strawberry jello, cherry, raspberry, or even blackberry
Cook the rhubarb in the water until soft. Add sugar and take off the stove; stir to combine and sugar is completely melted. Add the jello, stir and cool completely. I then pour into small containers and freeze. It’s wonderful on biscuits, bagels, toast and fresh sliced bread.
I’ve never had success with rhubarb .. not sure why. It really likes that tyre and all the organic matter 🙂
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Moles/voles kept eating my tubers until I put it in the tire with garden cloth in the bottom.
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A neighbor who produces bearded iris rhizomes grows them in tires because they supposedly appreciate the warmth of the tires in the sun. On cool days, the black tires warm the soil within. Bearded iris grow upward, so do not shade the south side of the tires much. He does well with it, so I do not question it.
Your rhubarb looks rather green. Mine is very blushed. I grow the same rhubarb that my great Grandfather gave me before I was in kindergarten. I like it because it is tart. I mean, it SHOULD be tart. I think that strawberry rhubarb pie is really weird, with all those worthless strawberries taking space that more rhubarb could go into. When my Pa comes down from Washington, my Mother makes a pie (or a few) for him. He loves any pie my Mother makes, but his favorites are lemon meringue (with ‘Meyer’ lemons) and rhubarb made with his Grandfathers rhubarb.
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