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Seattle Urban Farm Company - Garden trellises and supplies

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Seattle Urban Farm Company - Garden trellises and supplies

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Episode 70: Rhubarb

November 17, 2017 hilary dahl
Hilary Dahl_Rhubarb_Encyclopedia Botanica_Seattle Urban Farm Co.

Rhubarb is perennial garden crop and a low-maintenance gardener’s best friend. Originally from China, rhubarb has long been used as a food and medicine in Asian cultures, but it grows in almost any climate. Once a rhubarb plant is established, it will require little or no care moving forward. However, additional care will improve your harvest, and on this episode, we’re sharing tips on managing your rhubarb, including dividing plants as they mature.


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SHOW NOTES:

In this episode, we discuss:

  • Rhubarb basics

  • Sources of rhubarb

  • How to plant

  • Rhubarb rhizomes

  • Why dividing mature rhubarb is important

  • When and how to divide

Important Take-aways:

  • Rhubarb is a perennial, so it’s best to dedicate an area of your garden where it can grow for many years. Rhubarb will thrive in full sun, but it can also be productive in partial shade, and a mature rhubarb plant can be 4 wide and 4 feet tall.

  • Rhubarb can be grown from seed, but it’s easiest to plant root cuttings (which are also known as rhizomes), or small potted plants that you might buy at your local nursery.

  • To plant rhubarb, loosen the soil with a fork so that it’s loose to about 2 feet. Dig a hole about 6-8 inches deep and place rhizomes so that the buried bud (at the top of the rhizome) is about 1 inch below the soil.

Mature rhubarb emerging in the late winter and early spring. This plant has multiple buds or crowns and could be divided at the early stages of growth:

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  • Rhubarb rhizomes are underground stems that send out 1) roots to absorb water and nutrients and 2) shoots that become your above ground plant. When you first plant your rhubarb rhizome, you’ll notice that it will send up one plant. In the early spring this plant be a tight green and red ball known as the bud.

  • After a few years, you’ll notice that your rhizome is sending up multiple crowns in the spring. At this point it’s a good idea to consider dividing your plant so that it doesn’t become too crowded and reduce productivity.

  • Rhubarb should be divided in the late fall or early spring when the plant is dormant, or just starting to send up buds. To divide your rhubarb, dig a trench around the base of the plant so that you can see the rhizome and then simply chop back sections of the root mass being careful to leave at least one bud on your plant.

The rhubarb flower and cut back flowering rhubarb stocks:

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Featured
Hilary Dahl
Hilary Dahl

Hilary Dahl is a co-owner of Seattle Urban Farm Company and host of the Encyclopedia Botanica podcast. Since 2010 Hilary Dahl has been helping beginning and experienced growers create beautiful and productive gardens. She has the unique experience of working in on a wide range of projects, from small backyard garden plots to multi-acre vegetable farms. She also works in her own garden every day after work. Hilary is also the creator of our podcast, the Encyclopedia Botanica, which she started as a way to share effective and efficient garden management techniques, and as a way to spread her love of growing food and flowers!

Colin McCrate
Colin McCrate

Colin McCrate has been growing food organically for over 25 years. He worked on a variety of small farms in the Midwest before moving to the west coast in 2003 to teach garden-based environmental education. He founded the Seattle Urban Farm Company in 2007 with the goal of applying years of horticultural and agricultural expertise to help aspiring growers get projects off the ground or more accurately; in the ground.

Since starting Seattle Urban Farm Co in 2007, he has helped guide hundreds of urban farmers through the design, construction and management of their own edible landscape. Colin is the author of three books; Food Grown Right, In Your Backyard(Mountaineers Books, 2012) and Grow More Food (Storey Publishing, 2022); and is a garden writer for the Seattle Times.

In Perennial Vegetables, Podcast Tags Encyclopedia Botanica, Podcast, rhubarb, vegetable gardening, kitchen garden, growing food, organic garden, gardening
← Episode 71: Chickens with Anne Briggs, Part 1Episode 69: November Q + A →
The Freyr garden trellis by Seattle Urban Farm Co
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