Expert Advice on Rhubarb
Bob Marker stopped by my stall at Farmer's Market today and talked about growing rhubarb. He had a great wealth of knowledge, and I couldn't believe he has lived right here all these years and I never heard of him before. The quantity of rhubarb he usually sells is measured in thousands of pounds. He never harvests any stalks that are not a yard long and an inch and a half in diameter. (I'm estimating by what he showed me with his hands and fingers.)
I kept him talking by asking questions. I learned that the variety his family grows is descended from what his immigrant grandfather brought with him when he emigrated to the United States. It goes by the immigrant's family name: VanNorman (not sure exactly how it's written).
The grandfather's original patch was just west of Nickerson--11 acres in size. He never watered his rhubarb, but it was well-watered nonetheless by the high water table on his sandy land near the Arkansas River.
The rhubarb patch Bob maintains now is three houses south of Benton's Greenhouse on the east side of the road. His phone number is 663-6875. He sells rhubarb roots at a 3/$5.00 price when he divides his own stock every four years. One clump can be a foot or more across by the time it's ready for division. He rotates his plantings so that he has some to divide every year. Bob says he doesn't make money from selling rhubarb at $1.00/lb., but he makes good money from selling planting stock. In his will, he has specified Benton Greenhouse as the heir of his rhubarb stock.
Bob says he plants his rhubarb rows on a ridge. Each ridge is a big step away from the next ridge. Along the ridge, he spaces the plants a big step apart as well. The ridge is important because rhubarb rots easily when the soil it grows in can't drain well.
He has often fertilized with 13-13-13 from the Coop, but this year his ground seemed worn out, and he didn't harvest a thing. His rhubarb is there, but it's not kicking out the size stalks he insists on, so he's letting it recover its energies. He has also made arrangements to have manure hauled in, in an effort to rejuvenate his planting. "You have to mulch it really deep when you do that though, or you'll get a tremendous amount of weeds," he said. "I never had a weed in my rhubarb patch except after I hauled in manure."
I forgot to ask Bob whether his rhubarb is green or red.
By posting this information here, I'll never have to try to remember where I left that scrap of paper where I wrote these things down. I didn't ask Bob for permission to make this information public, but he shared it so freely that I presume he is eager to connect with people who are interested in growing rhubarb. If you talk to him, tell him you heard about his rhubarb from the flower lady at the Farmer's Market.
************************
A very sweet frail elderly lady named Sally Wiens, from Inman, stopped to visit again today. I remember talking several years ago with her about growing flowers. Her face lights up when she talks of all the flowers she has grown and loved. "I got sick and had to move, so I left all my flowers behind. But the people who moved there love flowers as much as I do, and they have kept things looking so nice. I drive by there just to look at the flowers."
What Sally wanted today was to know where I got my zinnia seeds. She used to have large and strong zinnia plants, but has not been able recently to duplicate that kind of growth on the zinnias she plants. I started giving her seed company names and information, then realized that this would be much more simple if I simply took her information and sent in a catalog request via the internet. She was quite relieved to have me offer to do that.
********************
One couple who stopped at our booth knows Dwight and Karen. They regularly drive out to The Potluck to buy produce. When they saw the meat offered for sale in our stall, they put things together and realized this was the meat source Dwight had been talking to them about.
*********************
The former president of TSW, the company where Hiromi used to work, stopped by. "Where's Hiromi?" he asked.
"In the van, sleeping," I answered honestly. Gotta go sleep before it gets too hot. (This man has a clear sense of priorities, and, as you can tell, he is very purpose driven.)
"Well, I don't think he'll get that bonus today that he was hoping for," his wife Barbara laughed.
********************
The Lebanese man who loves to buy chard to use instead of grape leaves as a wrap for the little cigar shaped ethnic food delicacies--outdid himself today and bought three big grocery bags crammed full of chard leaves.
"How long does it take you to use that much chard?" I asked.
"One day," he answered. "I buy some of it for my sister," he added.
"You know what I do with it . . . . " I did. "It's so much better than grape leaves."
*********************
A vendor across the way crossed the aisle to fuss over my flowers. I didn't exactly follow everything she said, but something about the market in Seattle, WA that is the oldest Farmer's Market in the country, and how the flower vendors there sell flowers in $5.00 bunches by pulling stems out of many buckets and wrapping the whole collection in newspaper for the customer to take.
I don't think she was being critical of what I was doing, but I thought . . . Lady, you have no idea how different it is to grow flowers in Kansas than in Washington. Any $5.00 bunch of flowers I could put together would probably represent several times the time and cost of that Washington bunch, and I'd still have a hard time getting people to buy, no matter how pretty the flowers. This is a tough flower market in a tough economic time. Especially this year, a long-stemmed flower grown in Kansas is a miracle, and finding a customer to sell it to is another miracle."
********************
Today, twice, a customer asked if I would take the flowers out of the vase and sell them for $5.00--logical for a person who doesn't need a vase. I surprised myself by refusing to do that.
"I don't take apart an arrangement and sell it for less after I have spent the time to put it together," I said. I did offer to sell both zinnias and statice by the stem at a very reasonable price since I had more than I needed for the arrangements. I sold more arrangements than usual today, in spite of those refusals.
I kept him talking by asking questions. I learned that the variety his family grows is descended from what his immigrant grandfather brought with him when he emigrated to the United States. It goes by the immigrant's family name: VanNorman (not sure exactly how it's written).
The grandfather's original patch was just west of Nickerson--11 acres in size. He never watered his rhubarb, but it was well-watered nonetheless by the high water table on his sandy land near the Arkansas River.
The rhubarb patch Bob maintains now is three houses south of Benton's Greenhouse on the east side of the road. His phone number is 663-6875. He sells rhubarb roots at a 3/$5.00 price when he divides his own stock every four years. One clump can be a foot or more across by the time it's ready for division. He rotates his plantings so that he has some to divide every year. Bob says he doesn't make money from selling rhubarb at $1.00/lb., but he makes good money from selling planting stock. In his will, he has specified Benton Greenhouse as the heir of his rhubarb stock.
Bob says he plants his rhubarb rows on a ridge. Each ridge is a big step away from the next ridge. Along the ridge, he spaces the plants a big step apart as well. The ridge is important because rhubarb rots easily when the soil it grows in can't drain well.
He has often fertilized with 13-13-13 from the Coop, but this year his ground seemed worn out, and he didn't harvest a thing. His rhubarb is there, but it's not kicking out the size stalks he insists on, so he's letting it recover its energies. He has also made arrangements to have manure hauled in, in an effort to rejuvenate his planting. "You have to mulch it really deep when you do that though, or you'll get a tremendous amount of weeds," he said. "I never had a weed in my rhubarb patch except after I hauled in manure."
I forgot to ask Bob whether his rhubarb is green or red.
By posting this information here, I'll never have to try to remember where I left that scrap of paper where I wrote these things down. I didn't ask Bob for permission to make this information public, but he shared it so freely that I presume he is eager to connect with people who are interested in growing rhubarb. If you talk to him, tell him you heard about his rhubarb from the flower lady at the Farmer's Market.
************************
A very sweet frail elderly lady named Sally Wiens, from Inman, stopped to visit again today. I remember talking several years ago with her about growing flowers. Her face lights up when she talks of all the flowers she has grown and loved. "I got sick and had to move, so I left all my flowers behind. But the people who moved there love flowers as much as I do, and they have kept things looking so nice. I drive by there just to look at the flowers."
What Sally wanted today was to know where I got my zinnia seeds. She used to have large and strong zinnia plants, but has not been able recently to duplicate that kind of growth on the zinnias she plants. I started giving her seed company names and information, then realized that this would be much more simple if I simply took her information and sent in a catalog request via the internet. She was quite relieved to have me offer to do that.
********************
One couple who stopped at our booth knows Dwight and Karen. They regularly drive out to The Potluck to buy produce. When they saw the meat offered for sale in our stall, they put things together and realized this was the meat source Dwight had been talking to them about.
*********************
The former president of TSW, the company where Hiromi used to work, stopped by. "Where's Hiromi?" he asked.
"In the van, sleeping," I answered honestly. Gotta go sleep before it gets too hot. (This man has a clear sense of priorities, and, as you can tell, he is very purpose driven.)
"Well, I don't think he'll get that bonus today that he was hoping for," his wife Barbara laughed.
********************
The Lebanese man who loves to buy chard to use instead of grape leaves as a wrap for the little cigar shaped ethnic food delicacies--outdid himself today and bought three big grocery bags crammed full of chard leaves.
"How long does it take you to use that much chard?" I asked.
"One day," he answered. "I buy some of it for my sister," he added.
"You know what I do with it . . . . " I did. "It's so much better than grape leaves."
*********************
A vendor across the way crossed the aisle to fuss over my flowers. I didn't exactly follow everything she said, but something about the market in Seattle, WA that is the oldest Farmer's Market in the country, and how the flower vendors there sell flowers in $5.00 bunches by pulling stems out of many buckets and wrapping the whole collection in newspaper for the customer to take.
I don't think she was being critical of what I was doing, but I thought . . . Lady, you have no idea how different it is to grow flowers in Kansas than in Washington. Any $5.00 bunch of flowers I could put together would probably represent several times the time and cost of that Washington bunch, and I'd still have a hard time getting people to buy, no matter how pretty the flowers. This is a tough flower market in a tough economic time. Especially this year, a long-stemmed flower grown in Kansas is a miracle, and finding a customer to sell it to is another miracle."
********************
Today, twice, a customer asked if I would take the flowers out of the vase and sell them for $5.00--logical for a person who doesn't need a vase. I surprised myself by refusing to do that.
"I don't take apart an arrangement and sell it for less after I have spent the time to put it together," I said. I did offer to sell both zinnias and statice by the stem at a very reasonable price since I had more than I needed for the arrangements. I sold more arrangements than usual today, in spite of those refusals.
posted by Mrs. I at
7:43 PM
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