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this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2024
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Works for hot peppers. The worse you treat them while growing; the hotter, angrier and tastier they get.
Certain vegetables like leeks get buried as they sprout to make the "shoot" part as long as possible.
Rhubarb is grown in near complete darkness, and it screams as it grows towards a light it'll never reach
Where does the rhubarb get energy then? Does it just rely on stored energy in the seed or roots or something and get given light eventually, or can it actually use tiny amounts of light?
The plant has an energy reserve underground that is allowed to build up for a year or two before starting to harvest.
If you are doing it sustainably, you can harvest the shoots until they start showing signs of undernourishment, then you stop harvesting and let it build energy back up.
Forcing the rhubarb is an option for the shoots you plan on eating, they grow faster and sweeter than if they grow naturally
Sounds barbaric.
Not a botanist, but I'm pretty sure that's why rhubarb is so sweet. Those energy reserves are mostly sugar, so maximizing the energy reserves maximizes the sweetness, like you note below.
Yeah the rhubarb that people grow in their own gardens without a rhubarb torture cellar is way more sour than store-bought, in my experience.
When we were kids we used to dip the stalks in sugar, tasted great.