Kitchen Garden Forum

One thing I will miss from our allotment next year is the freshly cut rhubarb. We shall be leaving behind a large patch of Timperley Early rhubarb which we planted in 1983, have manured every winter but have never split. We have quite often been able to pick the first stems very early in the year and one year we had a few shorties at Christmas! So you can see why it will be missed. So, here the question: do you think it would be possible to take off a good healthy outside piece of a plant and grow it on in a large pot? I don't want to sacrifice part of our vegetable garden at home to such a large plant as rhubarb, but a pot would be ideal. Possible?

One way to find out, I would suggest as big as possible and plenty of good manure in it too.

Yes I think a very wide deep pot might work. possibly one of those beer barrel types. Yes, and as tigerburnie has advised, lots of manure. I don't know exactly when you're planning on leaving your plot Monika, but if you can leave splitting it as late as possible I would do so, and certainly not in this hot weather.

if you can get a nice wide pot going now and start filling it with some nice rotting composable material to start rotting down, that will help nutritionally too. I've had several pounds of tumbling tomatoes from one plant in a pato pot which I've used as a mini composting site over winter and the plant would be in there for a long time so needs a good start. it will definitely need a pot which doesn't narrow at the top or you will never be able to remove it for possible further splitting at a later date.

If you cant find a suitably large wide pot I wonder if one of these jumbo plastic gardening containers/trugs with a couple of holes drilled in the bottom would work. At least they have handles so you can move it around if need be.

Dear Monika,
I would bring some home to pieces of root to force as well. Bring home big chunks in October or November and leave them exposed in the garden and then stuff them into pots and bring them into a warmish place where they can be forced in the dark from just after Christmas. This way you will get a crop whilst the piece that you are keeping gets over the move.
Regards Sally Wright.

Thank you for all your suggestions, especially the tip for forcing some pieces, Sally.