The Scotsman

Usually reliable rhubarb is struggling this season

- Jennymolli­son

Rhubarb is having mixed fortunes this year. It’s usually an undemandin­g plant and I count on plenty of stems for puddings early in the year before the main soft fruit season starts. When it is doing well, I cook some extra to freeze for the winter.

Some plotholder­s on my site are complainin­g that their rhubarb plants are shrivelled and sparse but others seem to be doing all right. It’s the early cropping pinkstemme­d ones that seem to be having problems. My own have been a failure.

It’s easy to blame the weather but on this occasion it’s justified. Rhubarb thrives on a hard winter but the temperatur­e here in East Lothian rarely dipped below freezing. It’s a greedy plant and likes a good dollop of rotted compost or manure, but even that wasn’t enough to sustain mine during the recent long spring drought when the east of Scotland had only 20 per cent of the expected rainfall for the period.

Rhubarb’s popularity dates to Victorian times. Before then it was grown for medicinal purposes. I do not know why Joseph Myatt, a market gardener in south London, began to cultivate it as a pie ingredient. He began by persuading his sons to put it on their stall in Borough Market even though it often didn’t sell and was ridiculed by customers. Eventually it caught on and with an eye to increasing its popularity among the nobility, he called his new variety Myatt’s Victoria after the Queen, and later another one after Prince

It’ s the early crop ping pink stemmed ones that seem to be having problems

Albert. The practice of forcing rhubarb in heated dark sheds came later on towards the end of the 19th century.

We’ve now had some torrential rain. Although the rhubarb has perked up and put out a few new stems, I am reluctant to pull any of them for fear of weakening the plants. Even in a good year, I leave off harvesting rhubarb after the longest day in the hope that the crowns will build themselves up for better things next year.

Garlic has been another victim of the warm winter. I planted it on the plot in early November and it thrived. Like shallots, another member of the same family, garlic needs a period of cold weather that persuades the bulb to split into individual cloves. I’ve just harvested them and looked forward to a good crop but most of them have failed to split and remain as a single bulb. n

 ??  ?? A mild winter and dry spring contribute­d to the disappoint­ing rhubarb crop
A mild winter and dry spring contribute­d to the disappoint­ing rhubarb crop
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