Give or take a few April showers, this month should see spring in full swing. The garden is waking up and so is your rhubarb. We'll tell you how to grow it, pick it, cook it and love it!
Ravenous for rhubarb
Rhubarb is a wonderfully versatile crop to grow. It doesn't have to take up much room in your garden and will thrive in most conditions. To get started, simply buy a rhubarb crown from your local garden centre. A single plant will give you a regular supply of delicious fruit for many years.
Using a forcing jar will help rhubarb in your garden come on in leaps and bounds. Pick the sweet, tender pink stems this month to enjoy an early crop packed with flavour and perfect for favourite desserts like rhubarb crumble.
Rhubarb recipes
Decisions, decisions...what will you choose to cook first from this mouth-watering selection of National Trust rhubarb recipes?:
How to plant rhubarb
Philip Whaites, National Trust Head Gardener at Wimpole Hall in Cambridgeshire, offers his tips for successful rhubarb growing:
- Buy rhubarb crowns, if you can find them, at your local garden centre or online. Three crowns will happily feed a family. Otherwise, you can buy rhubarb in containers. Or if you know someone with rhubarb in their garden, plants can be easily split in winter and replanted
- You can plant rhubarb in any good, well prepared ground. Dig in plenty of organic matter first to give your rhubarb the best start. Set aside a space of 2sqm for three rhubarb crowns
© NTPL / Nick Meers
- Plant your crowns so the tops are at, or just below, ground level. Plant them 75cm (2' 6") apart to give each plant room to expand
- You can plant rhubarb now, but make sure you keep the plants thoroughly watered
- At Wimpole, we grow a variety called 'Champagne', which has a lovely delicate flavour. 'Timperley Early' is easy to grow and a good cropper
- And the good news is, once established rhubarb is robust enough to look after itself. Just keep it well manured and watered
- And most importantly, how to eat your rhubarb? In a crumble with ice-cream. Add some raspberries, for a mouth-watering contrast
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Rich pickings from your rhubarb
- Three plants will supply a family with plenty of fruit, but just one plant will allow you to have the wonderful taste of your own fresh rhubarb
- Do not eat stems in the first year and then pick sparingly in the next two or three years
- Rhubarb is tender for six weeks on ripening, after that it gets a bit stringy
- Pull stems by twisting rather than cutting
- Remember that whilst the pink stems are divine, the leaves are poisonous - put them on the compost heap!
These tips are taken from 'Home-Grown Fruit', one of the Home-grown books available from the National Trust.
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Hit the rhubarb trail
© NTPL / Paul Harris
Rhubarb can be found flourishing in many National Trust gardens. Here's the pick of the crop:
Nostell Priory, West Yorkshire, sits in the 'rhubarb triangle' and is serving up lots of colourful rhubarb dishes throughout the spring.
Not one but six varieties of rhubarb grow in the gardens at Wimpole Hall, Cambridgeshire. They are all put to good use in the restaurant.
The Head Chef of Cotehele in Cornwall is kept busy with more than 1,000 rhubarb crowns growing on the estate.
Knightshayes Court in Devon sells terracotta rhubarb-forcing pots, and also puts them to good use in its kitchen garden.
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Also in season:
If rhubarb isn't to your taste, there are plenty more seasonal offerings to enjoy in April:
Vegetables: spinach, wild garlic, radishes, carrots, kale, watercress
Herbs: rosemary
In the garden:
There's a lot to be getting on with in the garden to ensure that the good food doesn't stop...This month, you should be:
- Checking beds are ready for the new season's crops and all weeds and roots have been removed
- Chitting your second early potatoes
- Sowing beetroot, carrots, swiss chard, summer cauliflower, rabi, lettuce, leeks, radishes, turnips, spring onions, pickle onions, peas, spinach
- Sowing under glass aubergines, broccoli (calabrese), chard, celery, okra, onions, peppers, squashes and pumpkins
- Planting onions, shallots, garlic and asparagus crowns
Enjoy!
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