Wild Rhubarb

[Justmegirl1979]

Hello, I am new here, and have what (may be, kinda seems to be ) a silly question...

I have a wild rhubarb growing on the side of my compost pile (which is a pile just at the edge of a small plot of woods on our property), it is THRIVING, and I want to harvest some to use for crisp and also for jam...the stalks are green, not the pink/red that I am used to, and from everything I can find, this is just fine, but there are a few comments floating around out there about NOT eating wild rhubarb. I know that the LEAVES of all rhubarb is toxic, but that the stalks are edible, and I don't know why my green stalked wild rhubarb should be any different, but wanted to get some answers from a few knowledgable people!

I finally purchased and planted a few rhubarb plants in my yard this year, but I cannot harvest them until next year and would REALLY love to take advantage of this rhubarb to use with my strawberries and make some of my favorite jelly!

Thanks in advance!!

 

[wifezilla]

I have rhubarb plants. One always has green stalks with just a hint of red. The others have deep red stalks. They are just different varieties.

 

[lesa]

Make a few more posts- so you can post a pic....just so we can be sure!

 

[Justmegirl1979]

Thanks! I will try to make a few more posts so that I can post a photo of it.

 

[Stubbornhillfarm]

I have what one might consider "wild rhubarb" growing in my flower beds. It is truly an invasive weed and not rhubarb by any stretch! I hope yours is something different, because mine is a pain. It has very, very deep roots. You can't pull it up, you have to use a shovel and chop the very deep roots to get it out and then of course, it just comes back! Grrr....

 

[patandchickens]

At least in North America, the only wild TRUE rhubarb you're going to find is just feral escapees of cultivated rhubarb, or descendants thereof.

It may potentially have higher concentrations of oxalic acid than cultivated strains, so you may want to treat it a little cautiously (taste before using, cook well, and don't eat a whole big lot of it at once). But really it's the same basic plant. And there are green-stemmed cultivars still in use in the garden for the kitchen.

Note however that it is pretty common for people to mistake other things, especially burdocks, for rhubarb. Snap a leaf petiole in half and taste it, to ID positively. If it tastes sour and fruity, it was rhubarb. If it tastes, well, like some random leaf petiole , then it was something else, quite likely burdock. (Burdock sends up a tall spike of lavender sort of thistle-like flowers in late summer, that turn into HORRIBLE velcroey burrs; the deep taproot is edible [the japanese 'gobo'] but personally I'd have to be verrrry hungry to try it a second time LOL)

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[lesa]

I was thinking burdocks, too Pat. Although being near the compost, I suppose some rhubarb may have taken root??

 

[digitS']

Does it look like this:

The neighbor likes to think he has a way with rhubarb. Burdock like this keep showing up on his property and he leaves them . . .

One like this has invaded (almost) from his blackberry vines. (Dead [nearly] apple tree in the corner with burdock taking advantage of space.) The blackberries now appear to have not survived the winter (they haven't been pruned in years) but a burdock thrives.

I hit the leaves on my side with the weedeater Sunday. (Very soon, it's gettin' sprayed with round-up.)

Steve
(parenthetically speaking)

 

[lesa]

When they are not quite so mature-they look more like rhubarb IMHO

 

[patandchickens]

Steve, before you go wasting Roundup on burdock, remember that it is biennial. Once it flowers reasonably-successfully it is dead done gone over and out.

So it is easier to wait til the burrs are just starting to form but not yet falling off the plant or dangerously velcro-ey, and then remove as much of the plant as possible (I use big loppers right down at soil level [my husband likes using an old blunt-ish hatchet *below* soil level {but I'm not convinced how safe that is}]).

And then it's gone.

Plus that way you get to enjoy the flowers (the earlier ones anyhow) which are not unattractive, in a bigleafed-nonprickly-canada-thistle-on-steroids kind of way.

I just ignore first-year rosettes, unless they are inconveniently located, because IME it is really really hard to kill them (and I'm told that even weedkillers don't always even work on the first application) and trying is just WORK. Whereas if you simply ignore them, wait til they flower, and then remove before the burrs reach a problematic stage, it is much easier and pretty well guaranteed to work in one go. Also you get the fun "backyard lumberjack" feeling of watching this 6' tall 3"-wide-at-soil-level behemoth topple over, LOL

Pat