Rusty Hinge wrote in message ...

snipped

As per instructions, I filled the bottom of the trench with bones, old
leather shoes (left over from a jumble sale) and old woollens, ditto ex
jumble, and mixed the excavated soil with rotted horse manure, hoof and
horn, dried blood and compost, and filled in the trench.

I divided the crowns, discrding the central portions, and planted the
outside roots in the resulting mound of soil. Keping the new crowns well
watered in the spring, they soon began to look anything but weedy, but I
didn't pull any, as per instructions.

One of my friends saw my jungle and asked if he could pull some. I said
no, but he could have as much as he wanted next year.

He was a bit miffed, but the following year he 'wondered' in the
biblical sense, and said how glad he was that I hadn't let him pull any.
It was waist-high, the leaves were vast, and the stems like wrestlers'
arms. One particularly large stick (not too old, and with the leaf
removed) weighed a pound. (·4537205 kg for any youngsters)


My father-in-law's rhubarb is like that. He puts all his weeds in a
bucket of water, and in spring ladles the resulting "stew" (absolutely
foul smelling) over the crowns. His rhubarb patch stinks to high
heaven but it grows like mad!