Champagne Rhubarb

Last year I picked the first rhubarb on the 25th March. Then, for the next three months I ate it every other day- 43 times in all until I let the crop recover at the end of June. One of the consequences of growing your own food is that you get used to having less choice. I never get tired of eating freshly picked fruit in season, although I can understand how tempting it must be to see the wide choice available in a supermarket.

This year, the late spring has held back the rhubarb crop by a fortnight so I only got to pick my first stalks today. The first stems are grown in forcers and because they never receive any daylight they are bright pink. The forcers bring the harvest forward by about a fortnight but they weaken the plant. Fortunately our rhubarb patch is so large and so abundant that half a dozen weakened plants will make little difference to the overall crop.