'Best' rhubarb grown in dark garden sheds

Anyone with a green thumb who wants to grow their own delicious rhubarb may wish to clear out some space in the darkest corner of their garden sheds.

The stem vegetable is best grown in the dark and is particularly popular in the Yorkshire, where it was this week given special food status by the EU.

Grown in the dark in large sheds, a practice known as 'forcing', Yorkshire rhubarb now boasts the same protected status as Parma ham or Champagne; products which can only carry the name if they are from that specific destination.

Yorkshire Forced Rhubarb waited five years for European Protected Food Name (PFN) status, but patience is most-likely a virtue in a trade where the prized commodity is grown by candlelight.

Janet Oldroyd, of the Yorkshire Rhubarb Growers Association, said: "To the hundreds of farmers long-since gone this is, in part, recognition of their hard work, dedication and steadfast belief in their product that has kept this industry alive since the early 1950s."

Yorkshire Forced Rhubarb is the 41st foodstuff produced in Britain to have been given PFN status.

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  Written by Robin Antill+ Started making garden sheds in 1979. so 31 years experience. Online since 1996. 1st in UK.