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Before you pick anything, work out which year the crown is in. Rhubarb is one of the very few crops where the correct answer in year one is to take nothing at all, and where taking a little too much for two years running will cost you a decade of good cropping.
A stalk is ready when it is fully extended and firm, generally twelve to eighteen inches (30 to 45 cm) long with the leaf fully open. Color is not a ripeness signal. Some plants are deep red, some stay green when perfectly ready, and a green stalk from a green crown is not unripe.
Always pick the outer stalks and leave the small ones standing in the middle. Those inner shoots are the next flush, and pulling them sets the plant back for weeks.
| Year after planting | How much to take | When to stop |
|---|---|---|
| First season | Nothing at all | Not applicable |
| Second season | Three or four stalks per crown, once | Late spring |
| Third season onward | Up to half the stalks at any one time | Around midsummer |
| The year after dividing | A very light pick, or nothing | Late spring |
| The year after forcing a crown | Nothing from that crown | Not applicable |
Pull, do not cut
Cutting a stalk with a knife leaves a stub attached to the crown. That stub cannot heal over, it holds water in the center of the plant, and it rots down into the bud it came from. Do it every week for a season and you have created the ideal entry point for crown rot. Pulling removes the whole stalk cleanly, including the swollen base, and the wound closes over.
The pull itself is a twist rather than a tug. Done properly it takes almost no force and the stalk comes away with a small audible snap.
- Take hold low down Grip the stalk as close to the base as you can reach, below the point where it starts to widen. Holding it halfway up simply snaps the stalk and leaves the base behind.
- Twist and lean it outward Rotate the stalk about a quarter turn while pulling it away from the center of the crown, not straight up. It releases at the base with very little effort.
- Trim the leaf off outdoors Cut the leaf blade away immediately and leave it on the compost pile. The leaf is toxic and must not go into the kitchen. Cut generously so no green blade travels indoors.
- Trim the pale base too Slice a small piece off the white swollen foot of the stalk. It is tough and does not cook down with the rest.
- Leave the crown balanced Step back and check that stalks remain all round the crown, not just on one side. Take evenly and never strip a crown bare.
If a stalk will not release with a gentle twist, it is not ready. Leave it and come back in a week rather than forcing it, since a snapped base is the same problem as a cut one.
Stop by midsummer and let the crown recover
The picking season runs from the first proper flush in spring until around midsummer, roughly eight to ten weeks in total. After that, stop completely, however tempting the stalks look. Everything the crown produces from then until autumn goes into rebuilding the root reserves that will drive next spring's growth.
There are practical reasons as well as botanical ones. Late season stalks are stringier and coarser, and they are the ones the plant most needs to keep. A crown pulled hard into late summer will come up thin and late the following year, and the effect compounds if you do it two years running.
The stop date is not a fixed calendar date. Stop earlier if the stalks are getting noticeably thinner than they were at the start of the season, which is the plant telling you it has given what it has.
Forcing for early tender stalks
Forcing means excluding all light from a dormant crown in late winter so it produces long, pale, exceptionally tender stalks weeks before the outdoor crop. It works because the crown burns stored reserves searching for light, which is exactly why it is hard on the plant.
In late winter, before the buds have moved, clear away the mulch and cover the crown with a large upturned bucket, a bin or a traditional forcing pot, blocking every chink of light. Weigh it down so wind cannot lift it. Piling straw or leaves around the outside brings the crop on faster by keeping the crown warmer.
Lift the cover after four to eight weeks and pull the pale stalks in one or two goes. Then take nothing else from that crown for the rest of the year, feed it well, and do not force the same crown again for at least two seasons. Force one crown a year on rotation and you get early rhubarb without ever exhausting a plant.
| Stage | What to do | Roughly how long |
|---|---|---|
| Late winter, crown still dormant | Clear the mulch and cover to exclude all light | Set up in one session |
| Under cover | Check weekly, keep the light out | Four to eight weeks |
| Stalks pale and long | Pull them all, then remove the cover | One or two pickings |
| After forcing | Feed, mulch, and take nothing more that year | The rest of the season |
| Next winter | Force a different crown instead | Two years rest minimum |
Keeping the crop and keeping the record
Freshly pulled stalks keep for a week or more in the fridge if you stand them upright in an inch (2 to 3 cm) of water or wrap them loosely so they do not dry out. Trimmed and chopped, they freeze raw without blanching and cook down perfectly well from frozen, which is the simplest way to deal with a glut.
Note the date of your first pull and your last pull each year, along with an approximate stalk count per crown. The gap between those two dates is your real picking season, and comparing it across a few years shows immediately when a crown is starting to decline and needs dividing.
Also record which crown you forced and in which year. Forcing rotation is impossible to remember reliably from one winter to the next, and forcing the same crown twice in a row is the fastest way to lose a mature plant.