When my parents bought their current house, I was just turning four, and the lawn was so overgrown that the "grass" was higher than my head! But when we finally got it mowed, there was a rhubarb bed in the middle. Yippee! So I grew up eating rhubarb, and now, finally, I have a place for a bed of permanent crops - this fall, I will be digging some of Mom's rhubarb and transplanting it to my own house.
We never mixed the rhubarb with strawberries as most folks do (though that's very tasty, too). Mom made rhubarb pie, cobbler, jam, and a sauce (just cook it down with a little water and sugar to taste) that is heavenly over angel food cake or ice cream (or both!!) I don't care for rhubarb raw.
It is extremely sour, as the others say, and quite acidic. You'll need to experiment to see how you like it best. It tends to be one of those things that you either love or hate.
When you do plant it, you won't harvest the first year; it needs to get firmly established. You can take some stalks the second year, but go easy. It takes about 3 cups to make a pie, and I have a recipie for rhubarb muffins that takes only a cup and a half, so you should be able to make something with your rhubarb. The season here in upstate NY runs from mid to late May through about mid July. When you start to get thin, weedy stalks, you dig it up and cut the root apart and replant the chunks. This will be years down the road, and don't do all your plants at the same time, because the newly separated plants shouldn't be harvested heavily the first year...
Also remember the leaves are poisonous, so don't feed them to livestock or use them in a salad! My mom cuts off the leaves as she harvests the stalks, and puts the leaves right back on the garden as mulch. She rarely has to weed, which is good, as she's almost 80.
My mom's rhubarb patch has been there for a minimum of 50 years, never been fertilized beyond the natural compost of the leaves, most of the plants have never been separated. Mom and Dad always took rhubarb to the Memorial Day Parade festivities, give it away to anyone who wants it, along with a few recipies - two years ago they weighed what they took just on that one day, and it was 53 pounds! Just out of curiosity, they continued to weigh the harvest that year, whatever they used themselves or gave to family or friends, and the total was over 70 pounds. The patch looked like it hadn't been touched!
You can make rhubarb pies and freeze them unbaked. Just add a little more flour than the recipie calls for, as when it's been frozen, it makes a lot more liquid when it cooks, and of course you'll have to adjust the baking time, as you bake them frozen, don't thaw first or you'll have a real soupy mess for a filling. Otherwise, frozen pies taste just as good as fresh.
So you're in for some fun, if you're patient and let it grow strong! And by the way, rhubarb likes full sun. Enjoy!
