How long does it take for Rhubarb to establish?

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!

I'll look forward to the answers you get. I have a little rhubarb patch but it came with the property and I have the sense that it was mature when the folks who sold us the house bought it a couple of years earlier. I have been wondering if I need to spade them up and divide the root crowns or something, but they seem vigorous with doing nothing.

Rhubarb is a mystery to me.   In patterns I find unpredictable, I have had it flourish seemingly from the moment it is planted to struggle for years and die.  I have taken the cowards way out. I plant it in several locations on my property.  That way I am pretty sure one spot will work…even excel.

okay, I live in 9b, in a land where rhubarb is uncommon, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

I can only get rhubarb seeds, for the most part, so every few years I take a stab at it. They take foreeeeever to germinate and it's usually at least a year and a half until I'm ready to take them out of the container I started them in. Then it's another year or so til they're producing enough to eat (small amounts).
(speaking of, it's about time to plant another round, because they tend to die in ridiculous ways every few years. Workmen trample it, the dog digs it up, when I fell and broke my wrist in the garden I landed on one. It's almost like a joke.)

When I was a kid, my mother in NJ (zone 6? 7?) had huge rhubarb. Enormous. Elephantine. I fertilize the crap out of mine, and it still doesn't get big-- maybe thigh high but never waist high, and I've never seen flowers.**
I'm thinking it's the lack of the killing frost? We get a few hard frosts but it never dies back completely. And every time I've tried to divide the crowns it simply dies, so I don't even try any more.
I've planted it in rich soil and had the crowns rot, right now it's in stony clay and seems okay. I water it during drought but otherwise just fertilize when I do everything else. I try not to go nuts mulching it because the snails seem to really enjoy eating the rhubarb.



**A few years ago I was at a kinda famous organic farm and managed to uh, abscond with some seeds from the largest rhubarb I had ever seen. Not a blessed seedling came up. Le sigh.

Okay, so rhubarb is a little picky with how it likes to live.
It needs for people not to harvest the first year, only harvest 1/3 of the stalk the second year and then 2/3 of the stalk from then on.
Here in Growzone 10b, it also needs shade and straw mulch so the temperatures doesn’t fluctuate a lot. I grow mine with my asparagus, since their growing conditions, pretty much are the same. They both also like lots of water and organic matter.
When it starts to die down, I cover it with straw mulch like I also do for my asparagus. Once I start seeing asparagus spears, I dig through the mulch until I see rhubarb with new growth. I open it up a little, so the new growth can get some sunlight.
The last thing you need to check, is that you have the right variety. Here I can only grow Victoria rhubarb, but your growing conditions are different, so read up on the different varieties before you buy a seedling or plant seeds.

Ulla Bisgaard wrote:When it starts to die down, I cover it with straw mulch like I also do for my asparagus.

Ulla, does yours die down according to temperature or drought? I haven't really noticed a pattern with mine. (much like asparagus, it never dies back and I never know if I should just cut it down or what)

Tereza Okava wrote:Ulla, does yours die down according to temperature or drought?  I haven't really noticed a pattern with mine. (much like asparagus, it never dies back and I never know if I should just cut it down or what)

Yes, it will die down eventually and so will the asparagus. In my experience it’s temperature and sun light hours. Mine usually start dying down in late fall.

If you cut them before they have died down, you remove an important source of food, from the plants. Both the asparagus and the rhubarb. They also need watering all year round. I have drip irrigation installed underneath the garden straw mulch.

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.

Thanks for the question Timothy! I was gazing at my seeds yesterday, wondering what to do with them. Soooo.... Pots!

Pots that sit beside the faucet.

I've only dug and replanted the small offsets, which seem to have very few actual roots, rather thin weedy rootlets like strong hair. I get them going in a water well pot, (modified 2kg yogurt bucket) this takes about 6 months or longer - before giving them to friends to put in the garden.  . Then they need looking after - may need shade, and copious water depending which area you are in.  
Once in the garden, then aged manure, as advised above.  Mine get used coffee grounds, banana skins and compost.   Always pull the harvested stalks from the crown rather than cut (no idea why, but my Mom said!)    I have 2 plants,  one makes spectacular stalks and the other about like what the supermarkets sell for lots of $$.  The first is still in its large pot, but has put roots out into the garden through the drainage holes.  The latter is directly in the garden.  So who knows.  The big one has flowered twice, 3 years between flowerings.
Another "my Mom said" - if the area is such that the rhubarb dies back in winter, when spring arrives, the stalks can be forced by placing over the crown a bottomless  bucket - plant pot - or other bottomless sort of tubular thing.   It is said that it's possible to actually hear the stalks growing.
I don't know the variety, but it has red stalks, and needs very little sugar when cooking it.