Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike Buckley
Hmm, I've either snapped off the seed stems or pulled them out
completely with probably a bit of plant damage and the rhubarb has kept
on going. You should still see stalks for a while yet, any plant that's
still established should keep on giving for a long while yet.
What's the reason for doing this? I've been told numerous times never to
let rhubarb seed, and also for mint, to the extent that my Mum won't
accept any mint that has seeded.
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Mike Buckley
RD350LC2
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It's so that the plant doesn't waste energy in growing seeds that you aren't going to eat and concentrates all the energy in growing the parts that you will eat. Can't see any reason to reject a mint plant that has seeded, though possibly a stem that is flowering/has flowered is less easy to get to take as a cutting.
The 'corn on the cob wraps' are actually flower buds. Left to themselves, the flower stem will lengthen and a bunch of flowers appear - rhubarb is in the same family as dock, so the individual flowers are tiny but the make an impressive cluster (and some rhubarb species are grown as ornamentals). It is enough to snap off the stem below the flower bud. There is no need to pull of the whole shoot and thus deprive yourself of future edible stems from that shoot.