Picking Rhubarb

[Benbow]

It is now September and I have a very health, fantastic crop of rhubarb.
Can I pick it to cook, as it looks just too good to leave?
Any advise would be very welcome. I also hope to plant it in a different part of the garden when it has finished fruiting.

[Kristen]

Conventionally (for whatever that is worth!) picking stops in July or August, perhaps early in hot summers when the plant is flagging. They tend to be robust plants and I doubt there is any additional stress on a healthy plant producing plenty of leaf from picking later in the season ... but if I was planning to move it I would stop picking early, to build up the root, and not pick first season after moving unless it appeared to be doing really well.

[Benbow]

Picking Rhubarb

Thank you for all that information. I was also told that late rhubarb has a substance that seeps down from the leaves into the stick, making it unsafe to eat.
Do you think this is correct?

[Kristen]

Thank you for all that information. I was also told that late rhubarb has a substance that seeps down from the leaves into the stick, making it unsafe to eat.
Do you think this is correct?

No, well "not exactly"

Oxalic acid is produced in Rhubarb, and supposedly more is produced later in the season, but to my way of thinking it is produced in the leaves ... and I've always considered that they are poisonous, regardless of season - so their place is on the compost heap Perhaps: don't try to be greedy keeping as much stem as possible at the leaf end?

RHS link:
https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?PID=544

"Concern is sometimes expressed over the concentrations of oxalic acid building up as the season progresses. However, this build-up is mostly in the leaves which are not eaten and the amount in the stems is not sufficient to have a toxic effect."

[Penellype]

You may find that like most plants, there is more lignin in the stems at this time of year. This may make them woody and not as nice to eat as early season rhubarb.

[arpoet]

I will not pick mine after mid August as it tend to get woody. I leave the plants to die back and chuck a sack of hos muck on them in the winter and when the fist signs poke up in the early spring I cover with a tub for some early picking.

[Greenleaves]

^^^ same as Arpoet here