Hi my name is Josh, I'm 20, I've grown carnivorous plants, and done several other random hobbies along with college (and I don't grow pot like many conclude when I say I like growing stuff.)
But I do grow flowerings plants that bear fruit such as tomatoes. Ironically I do find references from pot growing forums to be rather useful although somewhat on the (hippy) neurotic side of things at times. I've started a blog before, therefore consider this one to be updated sporadically, and only when interesting things happen. But if you like rhubarb and find that you must grow in in warmer weather such as Hawaii then maybe my experience will help. Or maybe they do grow in soil but it's never worked for me.
Anyways onto rhubarb and not the culinary aspects of it. (Why would you be here if you can't tolerate oxalic acid?) I have scoured online for growing rhubarb in the tropics. I found one guy who was hydroponically growing rhubarb in malta but he didn't reply. I don't like bashing but this website; Farming Geek is rather misleading. I honestly I think it is plainy an article to generate revenue, and traffic.
Unlike what the article says it happens to grow in a 1 gallon
white food container for months in the sun in the tropics of Hawai'i (specifically in Paauilo on the Hamaukua Coast). Not as fast as it could have been (once moved to the 5 gallon bucket things changed but perhaps it was just natural progression), but it worked with an airstone bubbling about and 5 ML per gallon of Flora Nova Grow. I also managed to kill a bunch of seedlings in my organic raised garden beds, that's irrelevant since I have not gather much information to see if hydroponics truly makes rhubarb grow where it normally cannot; although I think it does. I wish I had a picture but showing merely an old empty container with hole in it's lid isn't worth it.
Back to my initial stage, I had a few seedlings indoors under an LED light (I also thought about growing indoors under a Rebel ES array, I blame reef keeping for that thought) and I did more research on growing cool weather crops in the tropics and found an article written by some rather bright individuals : Issues 91:Chilling the Root Zone. From that article and a few others I concluded that chilling the root zone might be able to get my precious rhubarb to grow in my climate. Being that I live at the 500 foot elevation in Hawaii, specifically on Hamakua Coast in the town of Paauilo, it's warm, hits 80F in the days, and doesn't get past 70% humidity when it's hot. Being one who over thinks everything I thought about peltier cooling, then compressor cooling, a thermodynamic engine (specifically a sterling engine), then finding an alternative power source to power it (which is far from affordable, thus why the photovoltaic(?)industry isn't so hot). Or if I were rich I'd just buy an aquarium chiller and call it fixed :) In the end placing a computer fan on an empty pot hole, then letting the porous pumice get wet from popping bubbles and becoming an evaporative cooling pad worked fine
I'll add more but in the end the plant you see is a 5 day old photo that's already being dwarfed by new growth. Maybe it's the Maxigrow I just started foliar feeding and adding the the nutrient solution.
I have a 25 gallon container with a lid along with a simple design for a better method for evaporation cooling. I'll be upping my nutrient solution strength to 10 ML a gallon from my current 8ML. Also I have some bright red rhubarb seedlings I'll be adding along with this plant. Furthermore I will try to acquire some completely green ones for the heck of it. I'll update shortly. Not that I'm very knowledgeable but if you have any questions please ask me. I have kept a reef tank for years, I keep garden, and am not totally clueless. But I enjoy erring on the side of "I do not know" then being a "know it all" :)
