Saturday, 31 March 2012
Rhubarb delight
Here's the first of the rhubarb this year. It is worth covering one crown each year to "blanche" it, if only because you accelerate the crop by a couple of weeks. And I use the term "blanche" on purpose. "Forcing" is are far more industrial process where the whole plant is dug up, frosted and then removed to dark heated sheds. Even though I love the acidity of outdoor grown rhubarb, I am entranced by the crinkley yellow leaves and the anaemic pink stems. Right alongside my blanching bin the 'outdoor' rhubarb has dark red stems with grass green leaves - and is short and stunted by comparison (despite the Scottish heatwave of the past week). Now the cold wind is up it will be a couple of weeks before it is ready for picking. In the meantime we luxuriate with our homegrown rhubarb and bypass the forced rhubarb in the supermarket, retailing at £8 per kilo!
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Strikingly beautiful!
ReplyDeleteThat is some beautiful rhubarb! I'm going to plant some once the new plots are up and running.
ReplyDeleteWell it looks nice and healthy...is the taste different to that not covered?? My Rhubarb is ready for picking but hasn't been covered...I guess that's they beauty of living in the east midlands!!
ReplyDeleteWe're growing rhubarb in a big pot on our balcony. It's a bit small and spindly, but coming along. It also has a small lentil farm growing around it, after Jono sprinkled some past-it sprouting lentils there as 'compost' and they took off! It always galls me in the supermarket to see the price of rhubarb when it grew like a weed at home growing up! Mainly I don't buy it and scrounge some from the in-laws once their prolific patch is ready for picking!!!
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