What's up with the Rhubarb?

  I have been happily cultivating a new patch of Victoria Rhubarb awaiting the second-year harvest, a long anticipated reward for a year of just leaving the new plants alone.  This is recommended to give the yearlings a chance to establish themselves while drawing energy and food supplies from all the leaves the youngsters can manage.  Traditionally, the second year is the first year of harvest.

  The rhubarb started off with a promising gusto -- sturdy, green and assertive amongst the mulch covering under which it overwintered.  By all rights, I should be spending this week celebrating the first cutting, but alas, the plants are healthy but not overly productive.  I will probably choose to merely thin the stalks and patiently wait another year.

The best of my Victoria blossomed about 1 1/2 weeks ago.

  But a more puzzling problem has presented itself.

  Out on the farm, one easily gets about two cuttings of 1 cup to 1 1/2 cups per plant before the bloom hits.  The bloom is a naturally occurring flower stalk that is normally removed to prevent the plant from going to seed, to prolong the cutting season, and to maintain a strong and vibrant root system.

  The bloom usually occurs sometime in June and after the leaves have matured.  My leaves were not yet even a single foot tall.

  I grew up with non-descript plants that may or may not trace their history back to the Mennonite Kolonies of Molotshna and Gnadenfelde in Ukraine.  Perhaps Victoria has an earlier bloomtime than those non-descript heritage mongrols?

 

  A quick call to my Scandinavian-Jewish friend in St Paul, Minnesota, revealed further puzzlement.  Her rhubarb was also blooming long before the first cutting, and about a month earlier than she is used to.  She also purchased new plants for her new home, now ruing the loss of her nameless childhood cultivars.  A neighbor on my street, designated a "master gardener" in Indiana, has reported similar puzzlement over her plants.

  Our finding is that despite all the hype and claims to "heritage seed status", store-bought Victoria plants just don't have the vigor, the taste or the "delayed?" bloomtimes (which translates into production vigor) of our nameless Scandinavian and Russian heritage plants.

  I happy to have had the opportunity to purchase a plant not in over-all demand as a consumer item, but the promise of Victoria Rhubarb has fallen short -- being more bloom than vigor.

  Of course, we will update our perspectives next year.  Stay tuned!