"Jaques d'Alltrades" wrote in message
...
The message
from "Cumberpach" contains these words:

A few of my crowns on the allotment are starting to sprout.
Looking in the seed catalogue, it makes ref to 'forcing' - not sure what
this means. Any help appreciated.

Putting a bottomless bucket, old sewer pipe etc (often insulated) over
the crown to force the shoots up towards the light, resulting in pink
(usually) tender sticks a lot earlier than free-grown ones.

Tends to exhaust the crown, so they are usually dug up and discarded.

The easiest way is to "rotate" using three crowns. Force only one crown per
year (and only well established crowns). This will give you succulent early
rhubarb followed by yields from the two unforced crowns.
We use a sliced-off 100 litre container which has an old immersion heater
jacket tied round.
It works well.