How to Grow Rhubarb, A Cultural Tradition

John Laumer, Treehugger correspondent, wrote a post about how growing rhubarb used to be a cultural tradition. Growing up in the rural US Midwest, I thought everybody had a rhubarb plant in their back yard. Ours was off in the corner by the sandbox. When I moved to Chicago, living in a rental flat in an old European-settled neighborhood, every other backyard had a patch growing by the alley.

I'm also from the Midwest and remember eating rhubarb from my grandparent's yard. But even they, as steeped in tradition as they were, stopped growing rhubarb.