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Rhubarb in winter
Annyth
Posts: 13
in Fruit & veg
My rhubarb leaves are now immense - it looks more like gunnera. 
And the stems look great. It's very tempting to pull a few. But I won't.
But what should I do now? Just leave it and let the leaves die off over winter? Cut it back? I'm worried that if I let the leaves stay put, they will rot and affect the whole plant.
I can find loads of advice about spring and summer care, and forcing, but nothing about what to do with your rhubarb over winter.
I have one vast Victoria plant, and one slightly smaller Timperley Early.
Thanks!
0
Posts
Leave all the stems and leaves to die down naturally then remove them to a compost heap so they don't provide shelter for slugs over winter. Pile on a mound of well rotted horse manure and/or well rotted garden compost to act as a winter mulch. The worms will work it in over winter and the rhubarb roots will benefit from the extra nutrients.
Come spring, just as the first shoots start to nose their way out of the ground, scatter generously with blood, fish and bone or pelleted chicken manure and a few wildlife friendly slug pellets. Crop the stems till mid July then leave the plants alone to rebuild their vigour for the following year. Repeat as above in autumn and spring.
Once the plants are big enough to cope, you can cover one each spring to force the stems to make those lovely, juicy, tender pink stems. Once harvested you then have to leave the plant to recover and then harvest the other in the usual way. Alternate the one that gets forced each year so they have time to recover.
If your Victoria is really large, you could consider splitting it in autumn and replanting as 2 or 3 clumps. They would need at least one whole season to recover and establish before you could force them.
I would be careful when mulching to leave the crown uncovered as it could cause it to rot.
Never been a problem for me but then Mine appreciate the extra blanket when we have our usual cold winters of -15C to -25C for a spell. The last 3 have been unusually mild so they'll get a good blanket this year, just in case.
Ha-ha Tetley. No book but I do a newsletter for my garden group with jobs to do now as several are from tropical or southern hemisphere gardens that know no frost so get confounded by our seasons.
I leave my rhubarb plants to fend for themselves over winter. If they aren't butch enough to put up with a bit of frost then they are too weak to bother with.
I think that they need frost didn’t it originate from Siberia?
According to Wikipedia (and who am I to argue with that), it travelled the silk road from China to get here. It may also have come from China via Siberia.
I have bought 2 new types of Rhubarb from D.Browns this year, which are supposed to crop in Autumn. One is called 'Livingstone' and one is called 'Poulton's Pride'. They have come on really strongly this month (September) and I am waiting to see what they taste like.
(My 'Champagne' has been delicious this year. It has beautiful thin red stalks but is now coming to an end.)
I like to clean the rhubarb beds every winter and add a good mulch of compost/horse manure/ cow manure. Remember the crowns will be in the same spot for many years and do need feeding at least every two years. If you don't feed the crowns they will get run down and be more prone to disease.
Thanks so much, everyone! That answers my query, and then some. Barry Island, I was wondering about putting manure/compost on the crown, for fear of rot..
Janebal, I'd be interested to hear how your autumn-cropping plants do...
Annyth - I hope to pick a few stalks of 'Livingstone' and 'Poultons Pride' next week and will let you know how each rhubarb tastes. We are getting loads of rain here in Dorset today so that should make them grow even faster.