I’d like to tell you that our rhubarb plants are producing enough for our needs – not that anyone “needs” rhubarb – but I wanted to make rhubarb jam and rhubarb pie and put some in the freezer for making rhubarb pies in the middle of winter.  Who doesn’t “need” a taste of spring in the middle of a blizzard?

We brought two rhubarb plants with us when we moved from New Jersey.  Yep…dug them up from our garden, put them in a big bucket of dirt and loaded them into the back of the moving truck.  They survived the move, but the stalks they produce are skinny.  I don’t know if it’s the variety, or maybe they need a hefty dose of fertilizer – but the harvest has been downright puny.  We bought a few more rhubarb crowns at the garden supply store and planted them next to theses expat plants.  They are beginning to come up, but they have a ways to go before I can harvest those stalks – in fact, it will probably be next year, or the year after.  What’s a girl to do?

I went back to Highland Orchards.  I had taken my kids there more than 30 years ago for picking things like blueberries and cherries (did you know that picking cherries requires climbing trees – and throwing out the cherry-stained clothes, but the kids had a great time).  They also have rhubarb for the picking.  It’s only a small patch – I guess rhubarb is not a big “pick-your-own” fruit (actually, it’s a vegetable – which may explain why people are confused about whether to pick it or not).  We were the only ones in the rhubarb patch – pulling stalks to our hearts content.  I pulled the stalks; Chris lopped off the leaves (which are poisonous – and may be another reason why no one else was in a hurry to pick rhubarb).

We came home with about six pounds of beautiful, plump, red rhubarb stalks.  Chris chopped them up – I made the jam, and the pie – and packed enough bags of rhubarb in the freezer to quench that craving in January or February when I need a taste of spring.