Rhubarb

We picked another 5 stalks on Sunday - it's been chopped and frozen. The missus wants to make rhubarb wine.

We had another break in the rain yesterday so I popped down the garden to try and do something with some weedy, unhealthy looking rhubarb behind the greenhouse. I can't remember where I got that rhubarb from, but I've had it a few years now.

It was in pots for a year or two, but was drying out quickly, so I stuck it in some unused ground behind the greenhouse. It hasn't done well there, and looked pretty unhealthy.

We picked a couple of stalks - the biggest one was tough and woody, the smaller one was whitish and floppy. The normal rhubarb is several time thicker and much longer, as shown in the photos.

Yesterday I dug the crowns up. I had originally planted 7 crowns, but there were now just 4. The roots looked quite strong and healthy, but a couple seemed "overcrowded" and clumpy, so I have split the crowns.

I had a whole sack of "spent" compost - ordinary multi-purpose compost that I had started seeds in in the greenhouse, but no longer used after seeds had failed or seedlings had been potted on and some of the compost had dropped off during the potting on. I dug this into the small rhubarb bed behind the greenhouse. I expect there are still some active seeds in that compost, and I might well find a tomato or cabbage sprouting up eventually, but should be easily removed.

I also dug in a sack of Croypost - it's a bit rough and heavy, "marketed" as a "soil improver" rather than a compost. Hopefully the combination will help the rhubarb recover and thrive, but it could equally kill it all off.

The 7 crowns were then replanted. Each one is in a slight mound. I can add more compost / manure or something around all the crowns later without burying them. I'll try and get hold of some well rotted manure this summer.