Rhubarb

We have been working on our rhubarb patch for a number of years, by digging up and splitting the crowns then replanting them, and buying new pieces of crown, and growing rhubarb from bought seeds. Last year we sowed 100 seeds and ended up with over 90 new plants, far more than expected, so we planted them in the autumn and that has more than doubled the size of our patch, though they will not be productive until next season. We have sown more this year and hope for similar success.

We have also spent a lot of time this winter on weeding and mulching the patch, as it suffers from both perennial and annual weeds - we dug out what we could, then laid cardboard and paper sacks, with a top layer of woven plastic mulch to hold it all in place. This year we hope to be able to harvest more rhubarb and with less nettle rash!