"Theo Markettos" wrote in message
...
I've been posting here a little for a while, but I ought to do a proper
introduction, so...

I'm a student and, for the first time I'm living in a house that a)
doesn't
have wall-to-wall grass or concrete or someone to maintain it and b) I
don't
get chucked out of in June (bit annoying from a gardening point of view,
that). With much learnt from this group and not much help from the
weather
the vegetable plot is in full swing and I'm trying to work out what else
has
been left by previous occupants.

AFAICS the garden has once had gardening efforts applied given there were
a
few self-seeded lettuces around, some things that look something like wild
carrots (they're feathery but have a big taproot but not really rounded
like
a carrot) and a large patch of rhubarb. It's about 1m wide by 8m long at
the south east end of the garden so that it gets sun for a large
proportion of
the day, but up against the shed on the SE side and a fence on the SW
side.

Last year we moved in in July and it was heavily cropping: I don't think
the
people who were here before us for 2 years touched it. So we were eating
as
much rhubarb as we could and it was still going in October. I covered it
with maybe 1-2cm manure and come March it was peeping up again. As far as
I
could see the woody bit of each plant was maybe 1ft across.

It's been growing vigourously since then except about three weeks ago
there
was a storm in which what appeared to be icecubes fell from the sky - they
were solid clear ice, not white like hailstones, maybe 7mm across. Having
this pelted at it flattened the rhubarb quite considerably and it's
looking
rather unhappy now, like it's been sat on. We haven't been eating very
much
since then. There are lots of thin (1/2 inch) shoots at ground level, but
fewer thick shoots going upwards.

I pulled some of the broken stems yesterday (there were some with ants
living inside) and took about 8 more good ones to eat. So I'm wondering
what's the best thing to do: pull more so new growth comes through or thin
out to allow existing squashed ones to fatten up? Does it matter, from
the
plant's point of view, that the shoots are flat against the ground with
thin
stems since I assume they are still receiving sunlight OK?


It should be. Rhubarb is generally as tough as old boots.I'm surprised that
you got stems off it until October. The perceived wisdom is that you should
crop rhubarb until you start cropping gooseberries, which we started here in
Dorset a week ago, although I have to admit to a bit of overlapping. All
right then, quite a lot. My own view is that if it's happy to keep
producing, I'm happy to keep eating. When it dies down, I chuck loads of
manure on it, and ignore it until next year.

Steve
http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/steveandmaggiesplot