The message
from "adm" contains these words:


"Anthony Anson" wrote in message
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The message
from Joan Riley contains
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Thanks for the advice. Not only is there asparagus, but an apple
tree!! and some rhubarb which I only found when I moved a piece of pot
drainpipe a few weeks ago. All that was left was a few wet, mouldy
brown bits and the only way I knew it was rhubarb was because there
was a label stuck in the ground by it. Anyway, I moved the cover and
there is now a little pink bud showing, so this autumn I'll find
somewhere outside for it. If I had somewhere ready for the apple tree
that would be outside by now as well.

To do rhubarb justice you should prepare the ground well.

The old way, and IMO still the best, is to dig a deep hole - my old book
said four feet deep - and about two feet square at the bottom.

Acquire a lot of smallish bones - lamb ribs, chicken bones, etc. and a
bag of bonemeal; and from what's left after jumble sales, old leater
items and old woollens.

Some fresh animal manure can be incorporated in the bottom two feet, and
this will warm the soil as it breaks down. Higher up, it could burn the
roots of the rhubarb.

These release nutrients slowly, over a number of years.

Also acquire some well-rotted compost.

Put some bones, leather and woollens in the bottom of the pit. Mix
compost, spoil dug out of the pit and some bonemeal and tip it in.
repeat procedure until you reach ground level.

Any remaining bones, leather or woollens should be arranged round the
perimiter of the hole and the remaining compost and spoil mixed and
heaped over it, and the rhubarb crown planted in the centre of the
resulting mound.

Water copiously, and continue to keep it well supplied with water.

Do not pull even a single stick during the first year, and it will
reward you with *VAST* stalks in following years.

The asparagus can be treated in a similar way, though it's more usual to
build the bed up on a heap of manure. It isn't so greedy for water as
rhubarb is, though.

I thought the best way to grow Asparagus was to dig a BIG hole and put a
dead horse in the bottom.....

Thats rhubarb and its a donkey.