Re: rhubarb leaves

They are only very mildly toxic

Many years ago I was given several *seedlings* of Rhubarb (ie NOT offsets)

It grew for long enough that I got a few small feeds off it, This was the
nicest rhubarb I had ever eaten, just stewed and with almost NO sugar it WAS
NOT tart

However obviously this genetic freak of a ready sweet rhubarb was extremely
low in oxalic acid even in it's leaves

Absolutely everything loved to eat it, caterpillers etc......even in this
ultra-low caterpiller environment (and too dry for slugs and snails at all)

Alas my rhubarb tasted so good that despite my best efforts it was eaten to
death (mostly NOT by the chickens)

Since then I've bought new punnets of small plants the last several Springs
but have yet to have any do well enough that I could eat any stalks

Since planting out this Spring, several plants are barely larger than when
they came out of the punnet, while one has gone ballistic and has several
dinner-plate sized leaves and stalks that look good enough to
eat......although it's my intention to allow it to grow for an entire
season, until Autumn at least, to build up it's strength before harvesting
any stalks anyway

Note this, most successful plant is in part shade, morning sun only until
just after-noon. This climate is hot dry mediterranean, but the rhubarb
plant is co-located in a large irrigated tyre-stack-tub with a young figtree
and Castor Oil plant

The other smaller plants are in small pots in a more shaded (probably *too
much* shaded) area. Yeah I should move them to a slightly brighter location,
but like tomorrow we're s'posed to get 41*C, that's way over 100*F in the
old Dinosaur scale

The trick here seems to be getting the amount of sun and shade right.
Previous Rhubarb plantings died from being too shaded or too sunny

Where I'm originally from in the South (ie cold) of New Zealand, we grow
rhubarb in full sun. It naturally dies down to it's root in Winter, then
re-sprouts in Spring

Note it tolerates flooded soils and is semi-salt tolerant

cheerio


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......HEROES ep 5 Oct 2006

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