May 2025
by Laszlo
Rhubarb is one of the most underrated plants in our gardens. It grows very well everywhere in the UK and has lots of varieties – from extremely sour to pleasantly fruity, from thin stalks to very thick ones. When in season, supermarkets often stock Rhubarb, but it’s always very pricey.
The answer? – Grow your own rhubarb!
And the best part is that it’s relatively easy! Rhubarb likes sunny gardens, but in my experience, it grows well in half shade and can also tolerate moderately shady spots in the garden. The main requirement is to keep the soil humid by either watering it or using mulch to keep the moisture in for a prolonged period. Those big rhubarb leaves and chunky stalks consume and evaporate a lot of water every day, so they need a fair amount of replacement, especially during dry spells, which are more and more common in our changing climate. Although it’s a big plant, so takes quite a bit of room, it is well worth it for the regular and abundant harvest of stalks.
Pupils at St John’s and Kings Road got to experience just this.. The crowns were transplanted from my [Laszlo’s] allotment earlier this spring, which the pupils planted them in various areas of their growing spaces. At King’s Road, the crowns were planted in pots to contain the plant, and they were one of the earliest plants which started to grow. And with what a speed!
They developed every week exponentially and by May it’s time to use some of those tasty stalks to cook and taste our very own Rhubarb Crumble in the classroom. Unfortunately, for our EATS Educates session, we neither had an oven nor the time for a traditional baked recipe . Problem solving is nothing unusual for the Educates Team, therefore we dug a bit deeper and found an express way (with some slight modifications) to bypass these drawbacks. Instead of using the traditional crumble mix, we opted for a muesli, granola and golden syrup topping. Mission accomplished!
After harvesting and some additional learning about the plant, pupils peeled the rhubarb stalks and chopped them. Then the class was divided to three groups and while one station cooked and stewed, the other two prepared the custard or created their very own granola and golden syrup topping. Everyone could swap and observe or participate in any of those activities to learn new skills or further develop some existing ones.
At the end of the session a great reward was a bowl of home grown and cooked Rhubarb Crumble for everyone, served with some cheeky vanilla ice cream. Everyone enjoyed the afternoon for sure!
