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Sally Nex

Tag Archives: rhubarb

Forever food

23 Tuesday Feb 2021

Posted by sallynex in climate change, exotic edibles, kitchen garden, permaculture, sustainability, unusual plants

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Tags

American groundnuts, Apios americana, artichokes, asparagus, babington's leeks, Chinese artichokes, mashua, perennial crops, perennial kale, perennials, rhubarb, skirret, yacon

Just imagine a veg patch which goes on giving, year after year – no need to resow or plant up each spring, and nothing to clear away in autumn.

All that’s needed is a bit of weeding, maybe some mulch and a little protection from pests – and in return you get armfuls of produce not just this year, but next year too and for many years to come.

Perennial food plants come back again and again, usually getting a little better every year. You’re probably already familiar with some – asparagus, for example, rhubarb and artichokes (both globe and Jerusalem). Fruit trees and bushes are perennial, of course, as well as many herbs including rosemary, thyme and sage.

The big, dahlia-like tubers of frost-tender yacon are sweet enough to eat raw: dig them up to overwinter somewhere frost-free and you’ll have them for years

But there’s also a wide range of lesser-known edible perennial plants which grow perfectly happily in UK gardens and provide you with a permanent supply of day-to-day greens, roots and florets to eat – no resowing required.

Grow perennial veg and you’ll never be short of something to pick. You’ll be doing your bit for the environment, too, as you use much less compost, plastic pots, water and fertiliser when you sow once and grow for years. You’re also leaving your garden soil undisturbed, which is great for locking up carbon; it also allows the complex web of interconnected life underground to thrive, so your soil is healthier and so are your plants. continue reading….

How to plant rhubarb

10 Tuesday Jan 2017

Posted by sallynex in videos

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Tags

how to, kitchen garden, rhubarb, vegetable garden

img_4136

You can never have too much rhubarb. Well, actually, you can: it’s a monster of a plant, with mature clumps expanding to 5ft across, so more than two or three plants will gobble up vast tracts of your garden. But the actual deep red, spicy, fruity stems, first to appear in spring when there’s nothing else sweet to pick? No, can’t have enough of that.

I am currently a one-crown household, my ‘Timperley Early’ next to the fishpond a nod towards gunnera-like swamp plantings: rhubarb has a pleasingly exotic sort of appearance and is one of those edibles that sits well among more obviously ornamental plants. Mine has scarlet pineapple sage scrambling through it and a hardy banana (Musa basjoo) spearing up through its expanding leaves.

But I would like three: the ideal setup for the longest possible rhubarb season, providing one to force, one to rest and one to pick. I daren’t force my Timperley Early, perfect as it is for that treatment being first out of the ground in spring; I know I’d have to give up picking it the year after while the crown recovered and I couldn’t possibly deprive myself quite so absolutely.

Luckily, last year I got to make a video for the Crocus Youtube channel in which I got rather muddy planting a little crown of Champagne rhubarb. After a little house move to the other end of the edible exotics garden and a year left alone to establish properly, this is about about to become clump no. 2.

Now is just the right time to plant new rhubarb, while the crowns are dormant and don’t mind being moved. You can lift and divide an existing clump, making sure each lump you split away to replant has a fat bud plus a root; or you can plant a new crown of a different variety. You can watch how here:

Image

Wordless Wednesday: Promise

04 Wednesday Jan 2017

Tags

buds, rhubarb, spring, wordless wednesday

img_4241

Posted by sallynex | Filed under wordless wednesday

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This month in the garden…

08 Sunday Nov 2015

Posted by sallynex in kitchen garden, videos

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Tags

broad beans, garlic, late autumn, rhubarb, what to do in November

I am….

Planting garlic

Putting in some rather fine ‘Champagne’ rhubarb…

And sowing and overwintering broad bean ‘Aquadulce Claudia’

Videos brought to you courtesy of the crocus.co.uk Youtube channel!

Wordless Wednesday

10 Wednesday Mar 2010

Posted by sallynex in Uncategorized

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

rhubarb, wordless


Emerging rhubarb bud

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