The message
from Janet Tweedy contains these words:
In article , Janet Baraclough
writes

Champagne is not one of the most robust varieties, iirc.People often
put the rhubarb patch in some less-favoured corner of the garden, but it
really repays good conditions. I plant it above a seriously big hole
stuffed with as much manure, home made compost, old bones, roadkill,
woolly jumpers etc as I can lay hands on.


How often do you divide it Janet? Mine has never been divided but does
crop moderately well. It has good stalks but they are quite stocky so I
don't get a lot to one plant, I would love to get another variety or
would I get more energy if I divided it?

You'd do better to divide it.

1) Dig a big hole. The old books suggest four feet deep by three feet
square - assuming the water table permits.

2) Put lots of old bones, old (leather) shoes, old woollies &c in the
bottom, mixed with some of the earth and somecompost, manure &c, and
filling the hole with the remainder of the soil and more manure.

3) you will end up with a smallish mound.

4) Dig up crown, and separate off the new outside growth.

5) plant one of these in your new bed. The rest you can either use for
forcing, then throw away, or plant in the unprepared soil (assuming you
don't want to dig some more rhubarb mines)

6) Look at http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/roobarb2.jpg - this was
planted last spring in such a bed, and the crown (Timperley Early) was
about the size of a small parsnip. The pic was taken late summer.

7) Thus reassured that it really is worth it, DO NOT PULL A SINGLE STICK
IN THE FIRST YEAR. (Or you risk weakening the crown.)

8) Instead, use some of your spare new crowns sacrificially...

In another place, I dug a deep trench round a bed and filled it as
described, getting lots of old woollens and shoes after jumble sales had
finished. Bones from the butcher, and stable manure (free, but please
return the bags).

My old man had dug up his rhubarb patch as it was only producing skinny
little sticks. I saved the crowns and did as described ^ up there. He
was astonished at the results.

One of the sticks (without leaf) weighed a full pound - and it was not
past its prime.

--
Rusty
Open the creaking gate to make a horrid.squeak, then lower the foobar.
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/