Now's Your Last Chance to Harvest Rhubarb – And How to Set It Up for an Even Better Crop Next Year

Rhubarb season is relatively short, at around 8-10 weeks, and the window for picking is winding down. You need to know when to stop picking rhubarb each year to have strong crops next year. And that cutoff should be to stop in early July.

You can theoretically harvest rhubarb throughout the growing season. This is not advisable, though, as the plants need some time to recover from harvesting and replenish their energy reserves for the following year.

When you grow rhubarb, the end of June or early July is usually the end of the picking season. There may be time for one more harvest if you act quickly, but don’t push your luck and keep picking well into summer.

Latest Videos From

Watch full video here:

I used to work in the walled garden at a large, historic public garden. We harvested some rhubarb for the on-site café, but the vast majority of the stalks were sold to the public on a donation stall in the garden. There was a lot of rhubarb in this vegetable garden, and the stalks sold like hot cakes.

Year after year, I had to tell our enthusiastic volunteers when to stop harvesting rhubarb. It made sense to keep picking as long as stalks were available. But the risk of continuing harvesting for too long outweighed the benefits of making some extra cash.

In truth, my head gardener always wanted the picking to stop at the end of June, but we may have pushed it an extra week or 10 days into July.

When to Stop Picking Rhubarb

Knowing how to harvest rhubarb means you have the technique to pick flavorful stems without damaging your plants, but carrying on picking too long will affect the long-term health of your clumps.

While you do need to wait a few years after planting rhubarb to get a crop (you can get a live Rhubarb 'Victoria' plant at Plant Addicts), the temptation may be to pick as many stems for as long as possible in future years. That is a rhubarb growing mistake to avoid, or your plants won’t have the lifespan they may otherwise.

If cared for correctly, rhubarb plants can be productive for decades. And a key part of proper maintenance is understanding when to stop picking rhubarb.

The last harvests should be in early July. The window should last 8-10 weeks in late spring and early summer, when you can pick lots of stalks. However, stopping picking in early July gives plants lots of time to replenish their energy for the future.

Your rhubarb can spend the rest of summer photosynthesizing and building up energy supplies in its roots. This guarantees the plant has the reserves needed to burst into growth again next spring.

If you continued harvesting into summer, the stalks would get thinner as the plant lacked the energy to produce thick, flavorful stems. And you certainly wouldn’t get a good crop of stems to pick next year.

The sight of thin, spindly stalks on your plants is definitely a sign you need to stop picking if you haven’t already. A weakened rhubarb plant won’t have the energy to keep providing you with stems for years to come.

Rhubarb needs lots of nutrients to produce the large stalks and leaves. To ensure your plants have the essential nutrients they need, stop picking in early summer to store energy and fertilize with a phosphorus-rich fertilizer (like this tomato and vegetable fertilizer at Burpee) in fall and a nitrogen-rich fertilizer in spring.

For the best long-term harvests, it is also important to divide rhubarb plants every five years. The clumps get congested over the years, and produce weaker, thinner stems as a result. Lifting and dividing them reinvigorates the clumps and gives you new ones to add to the garden.

If you love inspiring garden ideas, outdoor advice, and the latest news, why not sign up for our newsletter and get the latest features delivered straight to your inbox?