The two rhubarb crowns I bought and planted in pots at the start of the year are looking really good now so I thought it’s a good time to post a general update on their progress.
They had to go into pots at the time because we knew we would eventually move house even though we hadn’t actually sold at that point. We knew it was inevitable though and that was the easiest way to bring them with us.
At first I wasn’t sure that they were both going to make it because after a few months only the Stockbridge Arrow had shown any decent growth. The Champagne variety was more of a disappointment to say the least with no signs of life for a couple of months but I held my nerve and eventually they both started to come good.
Now I think I need to make plans for planting them out somewhere in the garden because the pots were never intended to be their permanent home. They are fairly thirsty and easily dry out in the pots with those large leaves keeping the rain off.
I also had a brief scare when they almost went into reverse at one point but I think they just needed some more nutrients as they had exhausted the supply in the pots! They are fairly large pots but it seems that rhubarb can be greedy and I need to keep an eye on this in future.
So this is how they look now and they don’t seem to have suffered at all in the move from the seaside to our new place in the North Pennines. There has been no harvesting for this first year as instructed by every reputable rhubarb source. Next year they may not be so lucky though as I’m looking forward to trying some and I’m keen to compare the taste of the two varieties.
I just need to find the right time to move them from the pots to a longer term home but I have no idea when that might be!
First select where you are going to transplant them to, dig a large hole now and fill it with good compost, you have pigs, rhubarb loves pig manure, once the leaves have died back normally at the first sign of frost you can then plant them into their new home. Feed the crowns well with manure or compost in Dec, don’t cover the crowns just put the manure around them, come Jan we then cover the crowns with LOTS of straw. See my blog for photos of two year old plants pretending to be Gunnera !
Thanks for the useful information – I’ve been putting off a pig manure collection exercise in the woods but it sounds like it’s worth the effort!
I have a spot in mind for this rhubarb but the late planted peas are still plodding on slowly for now so I’ll do the digging and prep work in due course.