GROW YOUR OWN RHUBARB

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 840, 7 December 1929, Page 34

GROW YOUR OWN RHUBARB

SAVE THE SEED It frequently happens that rhubarb crowns will sene! up “flower” heads during the summer. It is the usual practice to cut away these “flowers” directly they are noticed, but where the heads have inadvertently been allowed to form seeds and these seeds have ripened, the experiment may be tried of sowing them with the object of obtaining a large but costless supply of new plants. Rhubarb seed is ordinarily sown in spring, but in the case of this home-saved seed sowing may well be done now. the seeds being put in singly, in a sheltered position, at six inches apart and the young plants later transplanted to their permanent position. A useful alternative plan is to choose as the rhubarb nlantation the ground between fruit trees. Here the seeds would be sown, two or three together, a yard apart, just where they are to grow permanently. This saves nil subsequent labour witb them and the growth is never interrupted, right from the start. If dealt with in this way, the rhubarb benefits from the lepves falling from the trees in autumn, which serve as a splendid proctection from frost and cold to the small plants during their first winter.