Inge Leonora-den Ouden

paul wheaton wrote:

Michael McCormack wrote:I can't access the video.  I get a message that this is a Private Video.  See attached screenshot.

Now fixed!

Yeah! I just watched that 'secret' video! It's 'old', but always interesting

Barbara Simoes wrote:...

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Effective Reduction Methods for Rhubarb Stalks: Boiling and Discarding Water: This can reduce total oxalates by nearly half. However, popular methods like making compotes or jams (where the liquid is kept) retain the full oxalate content.

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Soaking: Soaking cut stalks in water for 24–48 hours before cooking can help dissolve some of the water-soluble acid.

I understand: If you cook rhubarb stems in water and then discard the water, 50-75% of the oxalic acid goes away with the water ....
But I never do that. I cook small pieces of rhubarb stems with only a very tiny amount of water, until that water has all evaporated. So the oxalic acid all stays in my rhubarb 'mush' (Dutch 'moes').
Cooking in a large amount of water and throwing that water out, would result in loosing a lot of the flavour, and probably some of the rhubarb too!

When I make this rhubarb mush (or jam, but I add less sugar than in jam) I add a pinch of chalk powder. And when I eat my breakfast muesli with rhubarb there's yoghurt (a dairy product) in it too.  

Jay Angler wrote:...
Do they soak the rhubarb before drying it? I understand that the oxalic acid is water soluble and was wondering if soaking chopped stems would reduce its level?

I also realize that some people are more sensitive to oxalic acid than others, and that I'm one of those more sensitive people - love the flavor, but not the side effects!

Hi Jay. Surely I am not sensitive. I don't even know what the side-effects of rhubarb/oxalic acid are. Can you please tell me?

Again something to add ... When I say a spot is 'sunny', I mean if the weather is sunny. But here in the Netherlands there can be days without sun, only clouds, maybe rain.
So when a spot is shaded, that means it is really dark. Like deep in a forest. Rhubarb can survive there, but doesn't grow well.
Probably rhubarb does not like a dry and hot climate.

Catie George wrote:Rhubarb likes food. Manure, particularly. Rich, deep soil, and consistent moisture. It'll survive elsewhere, but to produce abundantly, it wants food.

I harvest mine continually, taking 1/4 to 1/3 of the plant at a time, throughout the year, going for the biggest stalks. I pull, rather than cut stalks, and use the leaves as mulch around the plant. I stop when it gets hot out, and usually get 1-2 more pickings in the fall.

I don't aim for huge stalks, which I find rather woody and less red, rather, I aim to keep it producing fresh new growth, and take the largest, oldest stems repeatedly to get that growth.

I don't give my plants much 'food'. I have a compost heap, from all 'weeds' and kitchen waste. That compost is what I 'give back to the soil', and nothing more.

Maybe I should tell more ...
The first rhubarb I planted was a gift (it was such a cut-off part of root. Someone here called it a 'crown'). It grew very good. But I wanted to change the design of my garden, so it had to be moved ...
Then I found out what HUGE roots a rhubarb plant has.
I made this one plant into two. Planted one in the back garden and one in the front garden in a new spot. (the result I described here before).

Some years later I started renting an allotment plot. It already had many perennials, bushes and trees in it. There were rhubarb plants in three of the garden beds there. One of those I removed and gave away. The other two are still there. They seem to be two different varieties. One is exactly like the one I have in my front garden. The other one starts about a month later, has smaller, thinner, redder stems and smaller leaves. It is not as 'productive' as the others, but the taste is sweeter.

Timothy Norton wrote:I have rhubarb envy.

I see people around me with big beautiful stands of rhubarb with huge leaves and long stalks. Some of these people inform me that the plant(s) have been there for years and years and years or something along those lines.

I have a couple plants that are a couple years old, maybe one that is three years old, and they just seem puny in comparison.

Before I decide on relocation or trying to bring in a different strain of rhubarb, I figure I should ask.

How long does it take for rhubarb to be established and productive?

Thanks all!

Hi. Here in my garden it took about one year for the rhubarb to be established. First year after planting it grew some leaves, but I did not pick them. Second year, after winter (when it totally 'disappeared') it came back with lots of large leaves and stems. So then it was productive. Since then every year.
In the back garden it doesn't grow very well. It's in a too shaded spot.
In the front garden and on the allotment, both places with lots of sun, it grows so very well I now need to cut some parts of the plant off. I'll do that at the end of the season, when it starts to die back. Maybe someone else will be happy with the roots I'll cut off. When planted they could become new plants.

Thekla McDaniels wrote:Can rhubarb be dehydrated?
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At Wheaton labs they dehydrate rhubarb, it's mentioned in the threads of some of the 'boots' here on Permies. First they mix the pieces of rhubarb with 'simple syrup' and then they put them in the solar dehydrator. Then they use them as candy!

I make most of my rhubarb (indeed, kilos!) into jam/sauce. I cook the pieces of rhubarb (with a little bit of water) and when they are all mushy I mix in sugar (to taste). Stirr on low heat until the sugar is dissolved. Then put in re-used glass jam jars with metal lids (first cleaned with boiling hot water). If you're in the USA you'll probably want to sterilise them using pressure canning or hot-water canning. I don't, I just put them in the fridge and don't keep them longer than a few months (using my jam daily in muesli and yoghurt for breakfast).

tuffy monteverdi wrote:...
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I just want to throw some caution and info here about the use of aloe internally:

The gel inside the green parts has been shown to be healing for wounds, cosmetics, GI tract, and beyond.

HOWEVER, the green outer parts of the aloe leaf, the “bitter” parts mentioned above, are a GI irritant (certain compounds in it are somewhat toxic) and thus are basically a very effective laxative.
Concerningly, there are studies that show the green parts can cause GI cancers with prolonged exposure - (probably due to its irritating qualities long term). These studies have been done on rats, not humans, however the results are not ambiguous, they were clear.

This study uses whole leaf and doesn’t differentiate inner and outer leaf, which sadly was an oversight, but nevertheless:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3537128/

And this paper from the Williams Cancer institute goes into the mechanisms and the compounds responsible, with clarity and a little more depth:

https://williamscancerinstitute.com/aloe-vera-what-science-is-discovering-about-its-possible-cancer-links/

Anyway, one can effectively use the clear gel externally or internally, medicinally, it has very few of these irritant compounds, but the green parts might be best for constipation issues only, sporadically.
And there may be better plants or compounds for that purpose anyway, that aren’t associated with carcinogenesis.

I have had comments before on this subject. Possibly it's true and the green parts can cause cancer.

This was an old traditional way for the use of Aloe, from an era before any research on cancer. It was known on the island of Curaçao (Netherlands' Antilles in the Caribbean), where Aloe is a very common plant (although it might have been 'imported' by African people during the 'slave trade'). My (late) husband, who was from there, used it. Not constantly, but the amount made of one leaf until that was all used up.

After he died I used it once or twice too. I never had problems with it being laxative or irritant. Of course I don't know if I'll get cancer. My husband did die, but he didn't have cancer.

For how many years I have my allotment garden now? Is this the fifth year already? Still my opinion is: chard is the easiest to grow. I don't have to do anything. It's self-seeding, it doesn't need watering, it grows between 'weeds' or between other vegetables and it can be harvested in any time of the year.
Of course this is in my local climate (moderate and more wet than dry) and soil (peaty sand).