
In England, rhubarb is grown by candlelight - MiriamWeiner
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20190424-the-english-vegetable-picked-by-candlelight
======
frereubu
This is an interesting history of the role of Scotland in the story of how
rhubarb seeds were smuggled back from Russia in the 18th century:
[http://www.rcpe.ac.uk/sites/default/files/jrcpe_47_1_lee.pdf](http://www.rcpe.ac.uk/sites/default/files/jrcpe_47_1_lee.pdf)
(PDF, 5Mb)

A particularly choice quote:

"From 1750 to 1850 Russia was making a fortune from trading rhubarb root
through St Petersburg to Europe via the Baltic. Russia supplied and controlled
the export of the dried root, thus controlling its price. It banned the export
of the seeds to block the growing of the plant elsewhere. Catherine the Great
took considerable interest in the cultivation and sale of rhubarb, as it
helped to finance her military campaigns in Finland, Poland, Ukraine and
Crimea. The price of rhubarb root rocketed! At one time the seeds were more
valuable, weight for weight, than gold. To give some idea of the veneration
that was given to the plant, Lord Stanhope, a Catholic peer, sent some rhubarb
seeds to the Pope in a gold case, encouraging him to grow the plant in the
gardens at the Vatican. This monopoly could not last indefinitely. Professor
John Hope stated in 1770 that if 'Russian' rhubarb could be grown successfully
in the UK, it would save the economy about £1 million a year (approximately
£20–30 million in today's money)"

~~~
sangnoir
This just goes to show the west has blatant cultural disregard for
intellectual property - this was daring IP theft, calculated to displace the
innovative Russian rhubarb industry and costing it millions of pounds /s

~~~
Terr_
(The original copyright holder could not be reached for comment, despite
significant prayer.)

~~~
ecocentrik
Litigious food makes my stomach turn.

There's plenty of incentives in the market to innovate in the GMO space
without legal protections, as there have been for thousands of years. Absent
those protections, GMO development would probably see more cooperation
innovation without hurting the speed of innovation.

Regional protections for product labeling make a lot more sense (vidalia
onions...) and improve competition while still benefiting large growers.

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istjohn
The article says one can hear "forced" rhubarb grow. "Forcing" is a technique
to stimulate growth of sweeter rhubarb stalks by depriving the plant of
sunlight. I found this recording of the sound on YouTube[1]. Apparently, you
can also hear bamboo grow[2].

1\. [https://youtu.be/l5HrnZXya5M](https://youtu.be/l5HrnZXya5M)

2\. [https://youtu.be/9HkhBxBZELk](https://youtu.be/9HkhBxBZELk)

~~~
goda90
There are so many little noises in nature that are often drowned out by man-
made noise, or even just the louder animals looking to mate. I enjoy listening
to earthworms crawl around in the leaves at night in my back yard.

~~~
Zenst
Oh it is amazing as so many sounds we miss out upon as they get drowned out so
easily. Be that other sounds or human materiels effecting how existing sounds
travel (nice simple example would be over-ear headphones, you can hear people
speak, most sounds over them and yet they completely drown out a cat purring
loudly).

I've been playing with contact microphones the past year and recently made a
balanced one myself that eliminates a lot of the noise such types of high
impedance microphones pick up. The sounds you can hear in nature are amazing,
just that you usually have to get away from it all just to be able to hear
nature at play. But with contact microphones, you can open up a whole new
level of sounds, think of them as microscopes for audio. But a simple piezo
contact microphone is easy to make and if you have the equipment to take a
balanced input signal, then for the extra cost of the extra piezo disc and 3
wire cable, that can be done just as cheaply. You will also need a pre-amp and
though most things you can plug a microphone into will have some preamp that
will get you started. Myself, I use a Zoom H4N pro portable audio recorder.
Can get cheaper options, even projects that people have made their own form of
portable recorder. But if you just want to listen, a simple preamp (can make
one or buy one cheap enough) and some over-ear headphones, will get you into
another world of sounds in everyday life that we miss out upon. Like I said
earlier - it is like an audio microscope and opens up so much we miss out
upon.

One thing you will learn, most nature programs you see upon TV, mess
about/fake and play with the real sounds actually made in nature with a bias
towards faking it and a penchant of layering so many effects that it makes
autotune look like an angel in the music world for any purist. Bit like
finding out about the actual status of Santa after years of childhood
idolisation :).

But so many sounds we miss out upon. Equally we are very limited in our
senses, Ultraviolet photography in nature shows us this. Sounds are just the
same with our limited hearing, but that doesn't stop us. Bat listening devices
exist and open up a another way of exploring the World around us.

If your into geeking out, you could use an array of contact microphones, sound
identification and with placement, work out the timing and with triangulation
- track all the earthworms. That would be a fun project, but probably low-down
on many a project list.

~~~
xvector
That is a really neat way of thinking of things. Thanks for sharing.

I listen to music a lot, but sometimes it's worth it to take my headphones off
and listen - really _listen_ to the world around me. It's strangely calming.

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teslabox
Rhubarb is actually a very useful food. It is a good source of Emodin, which
has gentle laxative properties. IMHO, it's better to eat foods that gently
facilitate bowel movements than than to rely on laxatives.

I've been growing rhubarb for several years now. It comes back by itself every
spring, and can be frozen for off-season use. The rabbits and gophers won't
eat it, because the leaves are rather toxic to us animals (the stalks are
perfectly edible, either cooked or raw). All I have to do is make sure my
plants get adequate water.

This spring I bought three more bare rhubarb roots when they first appeared at
the garden store. Last spring I bought bare root rhubarb late in the spring,
when they were half-off, but they never grew.

The instructions say to not harvest any stalks the first year, so the plant
can put energy into its root. When I bought my first plant it was already a
year or two old. The garden center guy said to cut the bottom out of the pot
it came in and put that over the plant, so the stalks would have to 'stretch'
to reach sunlight.

Here's a random page about forcing, as this bbc article mentions:
[http://rhubarbinfo.com/forcing](http://rhubarbinfo.com/forcing)

My blog post about Rhubarb as a 'functional food':
[https://radialappliance.teslabox.com/2017/06/pie-plant-
rhuba...](https://radialappliance.teslabox.com/2017/06/pie-plant-rhubarb-as-
functional-food-in-the-cayce-readings/)

I think Rhubarb roots can be split when they get big enough, sort of like
bulbs, but I haven't gotten to that point yet.

~~~
chrisseaton
> Rhubarb is actually a very useful food.

Who do you think you're arguing against? This is a whole article about how
it's useful for a lot of things.

~~~
braythwayt
Or possibly the OP is arguing against generally held preconceptions. As in,
"Lamborghinis are actually lower in CO2 emissions than the average coupe on an
annual basis, because their owners drive them so little."

~~~
chrisseaton
Seems funny to respond to an article that says X with 'Actually, X'. Doesn't
'actually' usually introduce an alternative view or a contradiction?

~~~
HeWhoLurksLate
Actually, yes it does introduce an alternate view or a contradiction, but it
can also be used to intone superiority towards a subject matter or person.

------
dmix
Someone should buy [http://forcedrhubarb.com](http://forcedrhubarb.com) ...
I'd buy some :p

~~~
willejs
Someone has actually just bought that!

~~~
dmix
Indeed they have, the whois was blank when I posted the comment and is now
owned by someone from Oklahoma.

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anfractuosity
That sounds amazing if you can actually hear it growing! We have a small patch
of rhubarb in our garden that I quite fancy making a simple gin out of (just
by steeping the rhubarb in the gin).

~~~
dasmoth
Do it! I've not actually tried gin myself, but vodka infused with rhubarb for
a couple of weeks (and a bit of sugar to taste) definitely works well.

~~~
m-i-l
Just don't do anything with the leaves! My parents used to have some rhubarb
in the garden when I was young, and I had it drummed into me how poisonous the
leaves were (not that I was the sort to go around eating random plants). Looks
like "a 65 kg adult would need to eat 4 to 8 kg (9 to 18 lbs) [of leaves] to
obtain a lethal dose"[0], although I guess you could still get pretty ill with
much less.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhubarb](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhubarb)

------
mooreds
My favorite rhubarb recipe:

[http://cooking-books.blogspot.com/2011/05/chicken-with-
baked...](http://cooking-books.blogspot.com/2011/05/chicken-with-baked-
rhubarb.html)

3 ingredients.

------
sneakernets
I've never heard/seen of the rhubarb stuff, but fast growing plants are
amazing to watch. Duckweed grows so fast that you can see bubbles and twitches
on the surface of the water.

~~~
overcast
Whaaaat?! Strawberry Rhubarb pie is a MUST try!

~~~
hinkley
Strawberry rhubarb is pie _lying_ about being cherry pie.

~~~
fwip
Cherry pie is an unfortunate shadow of strawberry rhubarb.

~~~
hinkley
How _dare_ you sir?

Pistols at dawn.

------
zwieback
The candlelight is so dim I can't imagine it makes any difference, is it just
for ambiance?

~~~
Timothycquinn
They actually grow in the dark by processing starches in roots. They candle
are just used for viewing or picking. Fascinating process. I can't wait to try
some of these one day.

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benj111
"A notoriously fickle vegetable to harvest"

What? How? Its one of the easiest things to harvest ?!

~~~
sevensor
I thought that was funny too. Once it's established, it keeps coming back, and
you just need to take the stalks before it bolts.

~~~
benj111
Even if it bolts you just need to snap of the flowering stem, you can still
continue picking, and it doesn't even bolt that easily. The only plant I know
to reliably bolt is in a local allotment and is 6ft across, and 3 ft tall
(that's the root mass, not the leaves).

~~~
sevensor
I think it tends to bolt more reliably once it's well established. My father
and grandmother both had big plantings of rhubarb, and they would bolt by
midsummer. I don't know why we never harvested it after that, maybe because it
wasn't as sweet? Not that it was ever particularly sweet in the first place,
but for all that, so delicious.

