The Rural Voice, 1996-06, Page 45Life is not as sour as it seems
in the rhubarb patch
BY ALMA BARKMAN
We found the sow sitting in the scattered remains of the
rhubarb patch, systematically munching down the stalks.
Little did the ancient prophet
Isaiah realize how aptly he had
described a typical rhubarb
patch when he wrote, "In the day you
plant it you carefully fence it in .. .
but the harvest will be a heap."
Truer words were never spoken.
When I was growing up, the
rhubarb patch started out as one
solitary hill in the corner of the
garden. As fate would have it, that
rhubarb was not destined to remain
single, as we discovered the day
someone forgot to close the garden
gate. It may be "the little foxes that
42 THE RURAL VOICE
spoil the vines," but it was our big
old brood sow who uprooted the
rhubarb. We found her sitting in the
scattered remains of the patch with a
puckered snout, systematically
munching down the stalks.
My mother despaired of ever again
having any rhubarb, but a week or
two later, not one, but six or more
hills of rhubarb sprang up at random.
Thereafter we endured a steady diet
of the stuff — rhubarb pie, rhubarb
pudding, rhubarb cake (upside down
and right side up), rhubarb relish,
rhubarb jelly and rhubarb jam. When
I was absolutely famished I would
even compromise my principles and
eat stalks of raw rhubarb dipped in
sugar — lots of sugar. But still the
rhubarb patch never got any smaller.
I began to see that rhubarb, like
the human spirit, is practically
indestructible. It can be pounded to a
pulp by a July hailstorm, flattened by
an August tornado, wilted to a stringy
pith by a heat wave, flooded out in
spring by a flash runoff and frozen
stiff in winter, yet it always recovers,
and surprisingly soon at that.
One thing was certain, I knew:
if I ever had a garden of my
own, I was not going to grow
rhubarb.
Ignoring it simply proved counter-
productive. I soon learned that to
deliberately exclude rhubarb from a
Canadian garden is paramount to
committing horticultural apostasy,
and such a sin of omission was
viewed with raised eyebrows. In a
vain attempt to point out the error of
my ways, friends and neighbours
loaded me down with their surplus,
and piles of rhubarb landed on my
back step.
"The way of the transgressor is
hard." As the porch slowly
disappeared from view underneath a
mountain of rhubarb stalks, I was
forced to capitulate.
Friend hubby could plant one root.
The thing flourished and grew
despite my neglect. The following
spring I sent our teenage son to
cultivate the garden. What did he do
but lose control of the tiller and
accidentally uproot the hill of rhubarb
— sent it flying in all directions at
once. As a mangled piece of rhubarb
whipped past the window, my glee
knew no bounds.
Alas, "whatever a man soweth,
that shall he also reap ..." Wherever
the rhubarb fell to earth it took root,
and right from that day to this, I have
been suffering the consequences.
From the moment the tender
young stalks of red rhubarb come
poking up through the ground in
spring until they reach the size of
green broom handles in summer,
friend hubby keeps toting it into the
kitchen like stove wood.
Hard pressed to make use of it all,
I add it to every available recipe, until
our children complain that there is no
such thing in this household as a