Planting rhubarb

Every year in February we sow a packet of rhubarb seeds then grow the seedlings on into small pot plants. Almost one year later, when the red buds of the new plants are beginning to show at the end of winter, we plant them into our expanding rhubarb patch (we have just done this today, adding more than 70 new plants to the patch). This is a much cheaper method than buying crowns (or small slices of crowns) from seed companies, or buying the plants themselves, but there is a delay of over two years before we get a crop. We have been doing this for several years now, so there are plenty of plants in production, plus the new batch annually, and we also replace any dead plants whilst we are at it. Rhubarb is such a wonderful hungry-gap-filler!

This was an onion patch last year. We covered it in black plastic for the winter, then removed the plastic a few weeks ago, dug out any surviving weeds and perennial roots, then planted the small rhubarbs on a one-metre grid, after a little broadforking / loosening where the plants were about to go. Each plant is marked with a cane so that we don't lose them.