Jaques d'Alltrades wrote:
The message
from Theo Markettos contains
these words:

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.

You shouldn't pull any after mid-June.

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.

That's because you overcropped it last year. It might never
recover.
Unfortunately, the remedy (digging up a crown in the autumn,
splitting-off the outside new growth, and preparing a bed and
planting
only the outside bits) leaves you without rhubarb for a year -
unless
you can dig one crown and make a new bed.

Of course, a year is a long time in student accommodation.

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?

Leave the damaged stuff. Pull new growth when the leaves have
uncrinkled, but before they go dull and leathery. If you have a
pressure-cooker, put freshly-cooked rhubarb in screwtop jars in the
pressure-cooker, and simmer for a while.

Replace lids on jars and leave them for half a minute (for the
space
to
fill with steam and expel the air), tighten lids.

Keep in a dark place, and the rhubarb will keep indefinitely.

But don't pull any after mid June!

I wouldn't recommend anybody living the student lifestyle to indulge
in sugar-free preserving like that. Yes, you can do it, particularly,
I imagine, with something as acid as rhubarb; but I'd hesitate to
take responsibility for somebody else's skills. Or is rhubarb indeed
so acid as to be a special case?

--
Mike.