Kitchen Garden Forum

Does anyone have any advice about flowering rhubarb?!

I planted 3 small rhubarb plants last spring which grew really well and I was able to harvest some stalks in late summer.

Due to the unusually mild winter here (I'm in Austria where we normally have a lot of snow!, which was comparable with a mild British winter, my rhubarb plants didn't really die back and continued to grow.

I inspected my plants last weekend and noticed that they appear to be starting to flower.

Local opinion seems to be divided as to whether I should remove the flowers or leave them.

I would appreciate any advice as I don't want to leave the flowers if they will hinder stalk production, but don't want to remove them if it will damage my plants!

Hello Derwengoch
The usual advice is to always remove flowering stalks from rhubarb. The serve no useful purpose and draw energy away from leaf and stalk production.
Don't be in too much of a hurry to pull stalks from your young plants. Feed them well and let them get properly established with at least one year's full growth then only harvest lightly in the second year. You need to get the crowns really well established before you can start harvesting regularly.

John

Hello John

Thank you for the advice!

I have now removed all rhubarb flowers in sight and will take care not to over-harvest this year.

Kind regards,

Derwengoch

I haven't harvested any stalks from my new rhubarb patch and they are all flowering. I notice another more established patch nearby is doing the same. Why are they doing this? I'm sure I don't remember rhubarb putting up flower heads til mid-summer before.

They will insist on flowering and as John advises - flowers should be removed. As you would with asparagus, let the crowns build up into strong plants before devouring them!

Hi Fen,
Here we are in a kind of drought and I feel that plants, like Rhubarb, are put under stress and when stressed they head up to flower.
So what I am trying to say is that lack of moisture can cause flowering.
In Derwengoch's case it could be the absence of the usual melt water from the winter snow causing stress.
I sowed 22 acres of Spring Barley 12 days ago and although we have had no rainfall the germination is very high but if there is no rainfall in the next week or so I could well be in difficulty.
JB