Rather excitingly, our rhubarb is shooting. This is a bit of a surprise, as shortly after I’d planted it the small shoot that was already in place had been snapped off. I think by an eager cat looking for somewhere to relieve itself.

Now obviously I’m not getting too hopeful here. You shouldn’t harvest your first cropping of rhubarb for eating, but let the plant (which is actually a vegetable, not a fruit) get itself established so that from year two onwards you get a decent number of crumbles. Same story for strawberries, raspberries and their ilk. Nonetheless it’s good to see a slightly shady and previously unused part of the garden finally bearing fruit (no pun intended).

Sadly, though, this is just one of the two rhubarb crowns that I planted, so I’m not sure what’s going on with the other one. So far, it would seem, nothing. But we can hope and wait. I’ll keep it watered and shoo off the cats and, if we’re lucky, by 2011 we may just have enough for a pie.

Related posts:

1. We’ve planted some rhubarb
2. Our first rhubarb of the year
3. A surprise showing from the ‘dead’ rhubarb