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Rhubarb pulling
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? Thanks Theo -- Theo Markettos Clare Hall, Cambridge CB3 9AL, UK http://www.markettos.org.uk/ |
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