Have you ever seen rhubarb flowers? They usually show up on established rhubarb in the spring and they are gorgeous.
Gorgeous and harmful, unfortunately.
We encountered our first rhubarb flowers a few years ago and, not knowing what it was or what to do about it, we turned to one of our favorite books. According to John Seymour’s The Self Sufficient Life and How to Live It, when rhubarb flowers, it diverts all of the nourishment away from the plant and into the flower. This leaves you without the juicy stems you want and instead gives you…um…gross-ness. No thanks!
So, what do you do? Cut it off! Simply grab a sharp kitchen knife and chop it off.
It will come off without a fight and will leave you with a huge straw looking stem which can just be left as is.
Easy peasy, right?
xoxo,
M
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Sadly my rhubarb loves to try to flower. I spend a lot of time breaking off flower stems. I can’t let it flower for another reason too. Though the plants themselves are lower than my air conditioner when they flower they are very tall and block the air flow.
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