Famous for early summer pie and wine, but also good in sauce, bread, juice, soup or cooked with meat and fish. Rhubarb’s clumps of juicy acid leaf stalks were once a staple food. The root is a toning purgative herb traditionally used every spring for thousands of years.

There are dozens if not hundreds of rhubarb varieties. May have originated in Siberia and been carried across Asia on the Silk Road to Turkey and then into Europe. Victorian cookbooks included rhubarb compotes, fools and charlottes. Eventually brought to North America through the efforts of Ben Franklin and John Bartram.

Low-maintenance plants; will continue through summer if flower stalks are removed and new leaves allowed to grow. Leaves are not edible.

From our trials, we’ve learned that rhubarb rarely comes true to type when grown from seed, a fact often undisclosed in the nursery trade. We are offering seedling crowns grown on a local organic farm. There will be variation within the crop. Some stalks will be green with deep red bases and others will be solid green or splashed with red. All are vigorous and delicious, and we’ve enjoyed them in our pies, wines and sauces. Z2. Maine Grown. (1-year bare-root crowns)