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.

I estimate about 4 years from seedling to mature plant, and even then, the mature plants keep getting more and more robust.

At least in my climate, they seem to like lots of water, and partial shade. I grow them under my grape vineyard.

I believe, out of five different plantings, I have one survivor BUT it is doing spectacular so far. This is the third year for this particular plant.

Rhubarb

I'll take it.

Ulla Bisgaard wrote: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.

Yeah, neither of mine die down. Individual leaves die off but it's never the whole plant. I just don't cut either, hopefully I'm not doing anything wrong. We just had a frost last night and they're both happy, so I have no idea.

I am with Catie, rhubarb likes rich soil. We have 2 patches growing on our farm, one an older variety and one I would call more modern.  Give them a bit of biological fertilizer when I think of it and an occasional watering when it has been dry.  Otherwise, they seem to be an auto pilot, for decades now. No special treatment in the fall. Not a rhubarb fan myself but someone is always interested in the young shoots, quite a beautiful plant. Does not expand into the adjoining grasses, has its niche and stays right there.

I would love to grow rhubarb.  It is tricky by me--a little too warm.  I think I will give it a try again, but this time I will plant it if better shade--the last time it was in full sun!.  I understand that rhubarb is a shade tolerant--or even shade lover--so we will see how this goes.



Eric

Mine took about three years to really get going, and even then it was only once I started feeding it properly that it bulked up. Manure in autumn made a noticeable difference the following spring. The patience is the hard part honestly.

I have found that the modern "sweeter" varieties do not produce as well in my climate than the older "traditional" varieties.

It took me several tries to find a spot where the plants were even remotely happy. Unfortunately, two of those spots aren't as convenient to water, which limits my harvest to the spring flush.

Spot 1 has a tradition variety that originally came from Ontario, via a friend. It produces well and has huge leaves. For several years I've surrounded the patch with leaves from my Wisteria (which *is a weed* in my ecosystem and absolutely needs regular chopping). Then I periodically water down those leaves with fertilizer P. (So not right on the plant growing area, but where the roots can reach if they want to.)

Spot 2 has a fancy variety. The soil was crappier there, and it gets more sun. I did next to nothing and finally I thought it had died, but it had the nerve to put up one leaf, as if to tell me something... I listened. I started reliably giving it the ring of leaves, and the fertilizer P. It took several years, but this year it has 9 leaves and some actual stalks.

So I will back the idea of rich soil but it doesn't have to be manure if you can't access safe manure.

If I was better at picking it really regularly, that would give me a better harvest, but alas, I do the best I can. My favorite use is Grandma's Rhubarb Pie, and I only want to make 2 at once (because my family would inhale one pie in 37 seconds), which takes 10 cups of chopped rhubarb. That means that collecting stalks 2 per day becomes a bit of a chore, rather than just going to the patch once and picking enough.