Forum home› Fruit & veg

Rhubarb - What went Wrong?

victoriacadamsvictoriacadams Posts: 57
in Fruit & veg
Hi, I hope you can help ...

We moved in to our new house with magnificent fruit and veg patches ...Nov 2020. 

We were delighted the following Year 2021, to inherit a harvest of high quality and quantity flavours and striking colours.  Rhubarb is one of my three favourite fruits.

We were careful not to overwork the rhubarb, but clearly we have done something wrong.

Now in 2022 there is no sight of any rhubarb at all.  Any ideas of what may have come of it?

Do any of you know where to purchase the best rhubarb plants to re-stock?  Thank you.

Vicky - crazy about rhubarb!


Posts

  • UffUff Posts: 3,199
    Mine isn't showing yet Victoriacadams and you aren't much south from me, perhaps leave it a week or two before worrying too much.
    SW SCOTLAND but born in Derbyshire
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 86,988
    Some varieties are earlier than others. I grow Timperley Early which we’ve been pulling for two or three weeks, but other varieties appear much later. 

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • bertrand-mabelbertrand-mabel Posts: 2,593
    No idea what variety ours is but we have had the row now for at least 40 years! New crowns develop and we don't harvest from these in the first season. Sorry to tell you but we have been harvesting from the older ones for some 3 weeks now.
    In the winter we do cover them with our home made compost and they usually start to grow in January.
    Hopefully yours will start to show.
  • LG_LG_ Posts: 4,302
    My Timperley Early has stalks and leaves but nothing big enough to pick yet, and my other one (Champagne, possibly) is only just showing a slight budding in the last few days. And I am a long way south of you! Everything is a bit odd this year, to be honest.
    'If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.'
    - Cicero
  • Pete.8Pete.8 Posts: 11,140
    I grow Fulton's strawberry surprise rhubarb and all is see atm is a knuckle of green leaf and a hint of a red stem on each plant, so you may have a later variety like I do

    Billericay - Essex

    Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
    Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
  • nick615nick615 Posts: 1,500
    Yes, victoriacadams, I agree with the other posters.  Mine are only just through.  I'd advise you get used to giving yours a really good feed once the season's foliage has died back.  They'll then spend all winter absorbing it, to feed you the following year.  If you can find it on Youtube etc., there's a very useful TV programme on the professional rhubarb farmers in the East of England whose roots grow to many cwt's/kg's and are actually dug up each spring, placed in huge sheds, and cropped in the dark to catch the early markets, before re-burying them for another year.
  • victoriacadamsvictoriacadams Posts: 57
    Hi All,

    Thank you for your support re; rhubarb.  My husband was adamant that I had inadvertently thrown it out at the end of the season.  Ha ha!  Not so .... our little prize rhubarb poked it's crown out yesterday.  No idea which variety  .... I will work on that one.  I will take time to watch the Youtube later.

    As a contingency, I had ordered two Timperley Early pots.

    Have a great day today!
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 86,988
    Hurrah!  Thanks for letting us know ... we need good news stories ... even about rhubarb  :D

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





Sign In or Register to comment.