Rhubarb??

Hello everyone, I am new here and am a novice when it comes to gardening. This is my first year of growing my own foods and am loving it all! Planting, watching it grow and when it comes to picking my first radish, lettuce, spring onion, tomato, potato it is so rewarding!!!

But I need some advice. My partner is a handyman on a country estate and he noticed months ago that the gardener had appeared to of thrown a rhubarb plant from the grounds allotment on the composs. My partner brought it home and it has grown and grown really well.
I uprooted some 'sticks' of rhubarb, washed them and put them in freezer ready for a lovely rhubarb crumble.

On the phone the other night I was chatting with my Dad and excitedly told him about the rhubarb in the freezer. He asked if I was sure it was rhubarb and to make sure it wasn't an elephant leaf plant?? He said to be careful, for if this was the case, I'd be very sick if I cooked and ate it!!!

I remember when I cut it up it really smelt of rhubarb and so assumed it was. My Dad lives quite a way from me so he cannot see what I have. Can anyone else shed any light on this? Does an elephant plant also smell of rhubarb??!!

 

There is a wild rhubarb in Britain that is pretty poisonous. It looks very much like the edible rhubarb, but don't know if it is called Elephant leaf. The poisonous wild one that I know does have a larger leaf than edible rhubarb, so it could be it. The sticks look almost exactly the same to me, so you do need to be sure.

 

Mmmmm......the leaves I must say are pretty big!!! Massive in fact!!! I have many times commented to my partner that I didn't realise rhubarbs took up so much space in the garden.

Thank you for your reply. I have a feeling I am going to have to sadly scrap what I have picked and maybe next year I'll buy a rhubarb plant so at least I know I won't poison myself!

 

Try here for some information on rhubarb, but have a look here for some images of some more ornamental rhubarb.

Take a photo, and post it on here, and see if we can help you!

Hope this Helps!