Every year, I mess up the Rhubarb.
The plant seems to make Rhubarb stalks and then immediately soar to the sky and make a flower bulb, which then ruins any chance of picking rhubarb stalks for cooking. It's like a weird game in which I always lose.
In a brilliant, albeit desperate, move, I dug up all the Rhubarb and moved it to the nearby kitchen garden, where it would live under my careful eye. I would see it every day, never missing a trick and would be able to stop blossoms, and never miss a picking. I was determined that this year, I would be harvesting Rhubarb stalks.
So far, it has worked as brilliantly as I had hoped. (Not all plans do.) I am picking Rhubarb stalks, stopping blossoms, thereby continuing the picking season.
I am tearing off Rhubarb limbs at their peak, in their deep red color.
I'm washing them, chopping them.
Freezing them individually on parchment paper.
and then finally putting them to bed in a lovely plastic freezer bag, where they will await my desire for cookies, jams and pies.
I am finally pulling off the Rhubarb plan of action. I hope you do too.