growing rhubarb from seed

tim_n

I had a tiny 1 year old crown from a garden center.

After two years in the bed, I snapped with a spade into four rather brutally. I now have about 6m2 of rhubarb plant. We harvested about 17KG and gave away an unknown quantity (about 2-3kg) to a friend - we'd also had a couple of other harvests and still have some to go.

I planted the root initally in pure fresh manure. It didn't do much in the first year and I thought it'd died. I turned over one of the beds and there was a bit of root in there, so I replanted it and kept my fingers crossed. 2nd year it was as previously mentioned about 2ft accross & spaded into quarters, 3rd year I'm getting tones off it. We worked out at supermarket prices (remembering this is organic rhubarb, though not technically certified!) what we've harvested so far is in excess of £100!

We have the 2nd best rhubarb on the allotment.

The trick is manure, manure and manure.

Money_maker

I have about 6 or 7 seedling plants in a pot from a packet of seed. They germinated very quickly. Currently sitting outside. Too small to plant, will probably need to repot soon.

Try again, sometimes these things happen.

lisa26_2

I got 3 tiny plants from the garden centre that had abviously been grown from seed. I've planted them out and they've not done much yet but they are still alive so its a start!!

Lotus-eater

tim_n wrote: »

The trick is manure, manure and manure.

I believe the trick is to get a plant with good genes, that is most that matters with rhubarb.
Get a plant from a good line and it will grow well if given minimal help, get a bad one and nothing you can do to it will make it a big good plant.

Rhubarb is well known for not coming true from seed, even if you buy it from a good named company.

Buy a decent crown, even better is to get some good bits from a local source, I believe this is very important and worth trying very hard to do.
Have you tried freecycle?


I have grown seed before, took it from the best biggest plant you've ever seen, 7 plants, not one of them worth keeping, took me years to find that out though.

As Farway says, even seed from good sources doesn't always come good. I wouldn't recommend it, unless as an experiment.

cjb02

here is my wiki on my experiences of growing rhubarb from seed. The variety I used is called glaskins perpetual.

I put 8 seeds in modular containers and they all came up. Just dont overwater is my tip.

Click here