Gardening Dopers, can you tell me what this plant might be? I found it today whilst reclaiming some back yard from the dreaded invasive Himalayan blackberries (a task that has not ended today, nor tomorrow, nor next spring…). Apparently, someone who lived here before us had a small garden patch, as I found those plastic tags for plants in the debris, and a couple were for an onion variety. I also found a spade, which was entirely unexpected, and yet more proof of how wildly overgrown the yard is. We’ve been here two years now and I never knew someone had left a shovel behind.
Anyway, I’m curious about this plant. It looks like something that my mother would have had in her garden, and I want to say it’s a Swiss chard, or something. But lots of leafy green plants look so similar. I think it’s a remnant of the long-ago garden patch, not something wild.
Looks like a little baby rhubarb plant. It’s a perennial, so it makes sense that it would be growing on its own. Don’t eat the leaves, but you can make good pies out of the stems.
And just to reiterate what MikeS said, because it’s important, DON’T EAT THE LEAVES. The stems are tasty. The leaves are toxic. They contain oxalic acid.
A rhubarb?! A rhubarb!? I just went and bought (yesterday) and planted a baby rhubarb plant this morning a few feet away. After, I was in the mood to play in the dirt some more, so I started clearing out behind the shed, as the blackberries are/were beginning to rear up again. Then I discovered the mystery plant, which didn’t look like a weed to me.
I thought maybe Swiss chard because of the reddish stem, but the leaves don’t have the distinctive vein. Too funny if it does turn out to be a rhubarb, 'cause, well, I had a hankering for rhubarb. Makes sense to be rhubarb, as lots of Canadians grow it, it’s fairly low-maintenance, and I doubt the deer would be interested.
I got a nice wheelbarrow-full of topsoil from the park people, too, to top up the “garden patch”, so I will nuture the rhubarbs, new and old.
I’m wondering what I can put in next. Potatoes? Onions?
This whole place has been neglected for about twenty years. Oy, I have cleared so much out I feel like a pioneer. I’ve created a new rising hillside in the back with the cuttings and plant and organic debris.
Oh, yes, I grew up with rhubarb in the garden, and my mother was very clear on the do not eat the leaves part of the deal. I only remember it as a large, established plant, though, because as I kid, that’s when we paid attention–when the stalks were big enough to mean rhubarb pie and rhubarb for eating. (Cut stem, wash off with garden hose, go to kitchen, and get a Dixie cup with white sugar. Dip stem in sugar and eat and chew. Good times!)
In case you’re still seeking confirmation, it is indeed definitely rhubarb. Given enough sun, it should recover nicely; rhubarb’s hard to kill. You can move it if you like, although it’s better to move it when it dormant; winter. It looks like it has some recovering to do already, without adding a move to that.
Or Rhubarb and ginger jam - rhubarb and sugar 50/50 with a bit of water to stew the fruit first before adding the sugar, and as much root ginger as you can stand, either only the juice, or grated if you don’t mind the texture, or matchsticks if you want the marmalade effect.
Rhubarb jam is beautiful; it’s a sort of pinky tawny colour. And because the fruit is so acidic its dead easy to make and sets in a trice.
