Giving the Gift of Rhubarb

Posted by Amy Urquhart Apr 20, 2008

When I began to plan out my vegetable garden for this growing season, one of my goals was to increase the production of fruit. Many early summer mornings I’ve enjoyed the ritual of walking to the back of our property to pick a bowl of fresh raspberries to enjoy with yogurt and granola. I thought that adding some other fruit species to our garden of edibles would increase the pleasure of growing food in the yard.

My Dad has often described his childhood habit of sneaking off to the rhubarb patch with a small dish of sugar. He would cut off a stalk of ripe rhubarb and dip the damp end into the bowl. The bittersweet taste filled his mouth with a lively burst of flavour throughout the summer.

I came across some rhubarb seeds during a recent seed exchange, but when I learned that it would take several years before the plant would yield usable stalks, I decided it would be a better idea to source out a chunk of rhubarb from a fellow gardener who was dividing an established plant.

Freecycle is an online community of citizens who are trying to keep reusable items from entering the landfill, and although I have never received plants from anyone through this method, I decided to give it a whirl. I posted a message asking local gardeners to let me know if they had any rhubarb to spare. What a pleasant surprise to find that Anne, a fellow vegetable gardener in my town, had some to offer me. I gladly took her up on her offer and I’m now the proud owner of a small patch of rhubarb in my own vegetable garden.

Generous gardeners are to be found in the strangest places!