hello welcome to Kate's Ag today i'm in Ontario Canada with Brian of Lennox Farms
once again which is so exciting and i'm going to be seeing rhubarb harvest today so thank you
thanks for having us might get you a t-shirt you'll be part of the family here oh well i
can't wait and i've also filmed Brussels sprout harvest and forced rhubarb harvest here which is
just incredible so i'm very interested to see how you grow rhubarb in the field
yep you're uh you're getting near the end of the season here it's the end of June but
there's still a lot of nice rhubarb here just have to watch for the odd yellow leaf because uh that
means it's uh starting to go down so we might have another week to harvest in these fields and then
on to the next thing and what variety of rhubarb is this this is German Wine it's a red variety
it's a nice red stock we do have a green variety that we use for the forcing in the winter time and
we do pick some of it but we prefer to pick the red for the summer varieties that's awesome and do
you sell most of your rhubarb in your farm store or where would your rhubarb be going uh we sell
quite a bit there we actually sell our pro we pro we actually dice it up and wash it and that's what
we sell most in our store because it's it's what people want it's fresh ready to use uh this stuff
here will trim the leaf off nice and it'll go to grocery stores and other farm markets in Ontario
and how do you grade your rhubarb uh basically you just want to make sure it has no marks on it
it's nice and straight depending on the pack we're doing we do do a pack that we bunch at one pounds
and put it in a sleeve so that one you want to make sure it's nice and straight because it won't
go through the machine put the wrap around it but yeah you just want to make sure it's nice and
firm and and no marks on it so that's incredible and what type of soil is best to grow rhubarb it
grows in many different soils it all it depends on the varieties the varieties we grow especially
this German Wine prefers our silt loam that we have here there's another red variety that
prefers a sandier soil so it just depends where you are what variety grows best for you what rain
would you say is required oh it loves it could handle two or three inches a week rhubarb this
loves rain so really it doesn't like to be wet all the time so you want to keep it on on a drier area
but it'll take whatever you can throw at it for rain wow and do you do any irrigated uh we don't
have irrigation on our farm so we all depend just on rainwater what is so cool about this rhubarb is
how big the leaves are it's so different from the inside forced rhubarb yeah because it's getting
that photosynthesis the leaf grows large and it's also what causes the rhubarb to be more tart so
it has that acid from the leaf that comes up the stalk and it just that's what makes the rhubarb
tart whereas the winter rhubarb not getting the photosynthesis is less tart does your fresh
rhubarb go to restaurants or to the to Toronto at all yep yeah we ship into restaurants we take we
have a stall down the Ontario Food Terminal we've had that for 70 years now so we sell direct to
consumer like small uh mom & pop grocery stores restaurants other farm markets that's very cool
because you can't get fresher than this no you can't this will be on the truck tonight
going down for tomorrow so wow i just love rhubarb what's the main difference between forced and
your normal rhubarb that you grow in your field so forest like i said doesn't get that light because
it's grown in the dark so it is less tart it's less stringy it will be a slightly uh thinner
stock just you use half the sugar because it is less tart it's just a totally it has that rhubarb
flavor without the sourness you know and how much rhubarb do you grow on your farm we have uh close
to 90 acres of roots uh we harvest roughly 20 to 25 acres of the red and to do the forced rhubarb
it takes about four to five acres of root stock to bring into the sheds and the rest is just um we
like to leave a patch every now and then to get it good and strong for the next year's harvest
so we'll leave 20 acres of red for next year and then we have about 30 or 40 acres of root stock
ahead just in case we need the roots or something that's really interesting so how many harvests
would you get out of one planting of rhubarb these fields here are um probably close to 12 years old
and they would have been harvested about eight or nine times over those 12 years so they last quite
a long time yeah if you take care of it you got to make sure you keep the weeds out and everything
and fertilize it does require some fertilizer wow i bet weeding would be very labor intensive
i never even thought of that yeah it's it's it's hard the first year after you get the rhubarb
established the leaves will kind of crowd out the weeds and take care of themselves but that first
year you really have to stay on top of it is there any fertilizing that you have to do or or way you
keep the soil in good health for the rhubarb yeah we we do a lot of cover cropping so
before we'll plant uh it'll probably have two or three years of grain and cover crop rotation
to get that soil good and healthy and then we do use a fertilizer to help get the plants started
and then every year we harvest in april we'll we'll put down some fertilizer to get it going
and then depending on the year we'll probably top dress in uh in early july just to give it a
little help to get through the summer and do you ever leave part of your rhubarb stocks behind to
keep the plant going as you can see we've just finished harvesting here so we don't like to take
everything we will probably take 70 percent of the the crown and we'll leave 20 or 30 percent to
to grow back and put energy into the root for next year that's very interesting because you
can't completely deplete the plant that's right of its nutrients yep yeah you don't want to take
everything otherwise you know you might only get three or four years out of a planting and you'll
destroy it so would Ontario be one of the biggest rhubarb producers in Canada i believe we're
probably one of the largest in North America we are definitely the largest in in Canada growing
90 acres there are a few growers in Michigan State and Washington State that do grow quite a bit as
well so we're definitely one of the top five in North America that's amazing do you export any
of your rhubarb yeah we do send some down to uh the eastern seaboards you know New York and
Chicago and stuff Philadelphia gets a little bit especially the winter stuff they they want to get
that too but it's we don't have enough of it so it mostly stays in Ontario so when do you plant a new
rhubarb crop if you're replacing a field so we're starting a new one yeah so with our red rhubarb
we could get away with planting every two to three years we'll put a small planting in you know three
or four acres uh the green rhubarb that we use to force every year we'll have to plant
four to five acres because that's what we bring out of the field into the sheds every fall so
after you forced it the rhubarb the roots are garbage so you always have to replace it every
year so every year we're putting in five to ten acres of rhubarb which is roughly uh 50
30 to 50 000 plants wow and how much would you be able to harvest per day we've been averaging
over six thousand pounds a day since uh the middle of may outside uh inside's a different
ball game it's just you pick to the certain height so most days you'd get um
fifteen hundred two thousand pounds but you'll get more pickings whereas this will go through once
the indoor rhubarb uh will go through about six or seven times
now i'm going to try picking rhubarb yep slide your hand down the stalk and twist and pull
oh wow this is a bit tougher because we've had no rain so
if it's moister it's easier to pick wow this is super cool so probably this one as well
amazing well this is very fun i could do this all day long well we could use you
and the thinner rhubarb stocks you would just leave here yeah we would
leave the thinner ones to grow to help feed the root for next year
and you also look at how green the rhubarb stock is uh well yeah we want uh the nice
red ones for this red variety um as it gets older you'll see some scarring on
the outside so that that one there you try to avoid picking all together if you could
if you see it but you're getting the good stuff there so it's great this is fantastic rhubarb
and rhubarb is so delicious in pies too it is that's my favorite so the rhubarb
is taken from the field and the leaves are cut off and then onto your tractor which it's
then taken to your warehouse and grated yup yeah we'll harvest in the morning while it's
cooler and then we'll pack in the afternoon in the shed while it's warmer outside so
today we're doing uh we process so today we're doing some processing rhubarb which means we'll
cut the top and bottom off and we're also packing for 10 pounders which means we'll just
leave a little bit of leaf on so okay which i believe that's what they're cutting right now
so this is just like gardening but on a larger scale i guess so i guess you could call it
that much larger scale larger scale yep farmers don't have gardens we have big fields thank you
now i'm here with Rajan again from Brussels sprout
harvest which is absolutely fantastic thank you so much for your interview
do you enjoy rhubarb harvest as well always i'm good yeah good harvests are good
well the processors yeah you guys don't take it here bring it over here we've
got our leaves what whatever you're doing dicing we've got the both sides like stick
we're doing the stick probably like for boxing and one bomb record after these sliders
so nicely processed
and we do dicing also that's great and how long have you been involved in rhubarb harvest for
17 years that's so fun yeah well it just looks great
thank you for the interview again it was great speaking with you thanks very much i'm now here
with sean and you're also involved in rhubarb harvest is this your favorite harvest oh yes it
is this is one of my favorites that's incredible and how long have you been harvesting rhubarb for
uh it is oh wow that's awesome yes what would be your favorite aspect grading or picking out in the
field everything oh that's wonderful everything yeah it's all part of the job so you know so it's
it's okay we have fun do what we're supposed to do you know so it's nice it's nice that's amazing
and could you show me how you pick rhubarb oh yeah sure okay um so belong here i been here
back and go wrong and get close to the bottom as possible and twist come off just quite easy
wow that was fast oh yeah and what grade would this rhubarb be uh this would be like a two
because it's kind of curvy not quite perfect no most of these would be grade one though oh yes yes
most of these are yes it's delicious rhubarb do you also love having rhubarb and pies oh yes we do
we make them from time to time it's okay that's awesome well thank you so much okay no problem
there are a lot of rhubarb leaves yeah they they rot down pretty quick though so a few weeks
they'll be gone that's about the only thing we don't use on the rhubarb plant when we're pressing
like once we're grading you grade out the stuff that doesn't make great for boxes we'll use it for
processing so that gets rid of the garbage there no waste and if we uh we send the rhubarb out to
be juiced we actually get the pulp back from the press plant and we dry it and we make a flour out
of it so oh really yeah so there's we really have no waste with rhubarb it's quite neat how we can
do that that is neat yeah it's just the leaves are the only thing but they'll feed the ground a
little bit too so it's not a bad thing oh that is good so they provide nutrients back into the soil
yep yeah there's still nutrients in there thank you so much for watching today's video i hope
you learned a little bit about how your rhubarb gets to your table i know i sure did make sure
to like and subscribe and if you'd like to learn more about Lennox Farms or even purchase some of
their rhubarb you can visit www.lennoxfarm.ca and everything is listed there we have an online store
lots of information about the crops we grow and uh our emails there if you want to drop a line we can
answer your questions for you as well that's great and if you're in Ontario looking at the gorgeous
rhubarb in the store just know it's Lennox Farms that's right okay thank you bye see ya