Rhubarb: planting and care in open ground, how to grow from seeds, how to prepare for winter

Rhubarb: planting and care in open ground is a topic of interest to many gardeners. A perennial plant from the Buckwheat family produces juicy and quite tasty petioles that can be eaten. In order to successfully grow rhubarb on your own plot, you need to know how to plant the plant and care for it.

Popular varieties and types of rhubarb

There are many varieties of rhubarb with photos and descriptions suitable for growing in the garden. Several of the most popular varieties can be listed.

Victoria

Victoria is an early ripening variety, the petioles of which can be removed already on the 36th day after emergence.The variety was included in the State Register in 2004, has cherry skin at the base and green along the entire length, produces petioles weighing up to 80 g with a yield of about 4.8 kg per meter of planting.

Malachite

Malachite is an early ripening variety of 2008 with petioles maturing on the 39th day after germination, has green leaves in a vertical rosette, the skin and pulp of the petiole are green. The petiole weighs about 200 g, the yield can be up to 12 kg per meter of land.

Beauty

Beauty is a mid-season variety with a petiole ripening period of 42 days, has petioles with red skin and pink flesh with an average weight of up to 150 g. The yield of the variety is up to 3.5 kg per meter of planting. Rhubarb of this variety appeared in the State Register in 2006.

Altai dawns

Altai Zori is a very early variety, registered in 2001, the petioles of which can be cut off within 23 days after germination. The skin of the petioles is red and the flesh is green, the average weight of one petiole is 120 g, and per meter of plantings you can harvest up to 4.2 kg.

Tsukatny

Candied - a variety included in the State Register in 2006, produces petioles with red skin and pink flesh on the 25th day after emergence. The average weight of petioles is 200 g; about 3.5 kg can be collected from a meter of garden.

The choice of rhubarb variety depends solely on the preferences of the gardener; if desired, several varieties of plants can be grown on the site at once. The propagation algorithm and rules for caring for the crop are approximately the same, regardless of the variety; rhubarb varieties differ only in the timing of cutting off ripe petioles.

How does rhubarb reproduce?

There are 2 ways to propagate a garden crop - by seeds and by dividing an adult plant into parts. Each method has its own advantages.

The seeds are used in cases where it is planned to plant rhubarb in the garden for the first time, or the gardener wants to grow a new variety that is still unknown to him.
Dividing the bush is practiced if there is already mature rhubarb on the site, and it is necessary to increase the number of bushes of the same variety. Growing rhubarb from a bush is convenient because the new plant produces its first harvest in the year of planting or the next season.

The choice of planting method depends on the experience of the gardener and on climatic and soil conditions; it is impossible to say unequivocally which method of propagating the crop is better.

How to grow rhubarb from seeds

Gardeners have to grow rhubarb from seeds when they first become acquainted with the plant or when planting an unfamiliar variety on a plot. Although the main disadvantage of this method is that you will have to wait longer for the harvest than when dividing a bush, planting seeds also has its advantages.

First of all, this is a very simple process that even a novice gardener can handle. In addition, seeds can be grown in 2 ways at once, in a container for seedlings or directly in open ground. Rhubarb has good frost resistance, so it tolerates planting directly into the soil well.

Growing rhubarb seedlings

Most often, gardeners resort to the classic agricultural technology of growing rhubarb - planting seeds in containers for seedlings. Growing a crop using this method is very simple, but here you also need to know the basic rules.

When to plant rhubarb seedlings with seeds

You can plant rhubarb seeds from late February to early April. The optimal time is considered to be mid-March, since the seedlings of the crop appear quite quickly; if planted early, you may encounter that the rhubarb will not have enough daylight.

Preparing containers and soil

The germination of seeds and the health of seedlings largely depend on the quality of the soil and the choice of containers.

You can grow rhubarb in peat pots and seedling boxes, in containers made of wood and plastic, and in special glass microgreenhouses made of durable glass.
Each option has its own advantages, for example, a microgreenhouse will provide the necessary temperature conditions, and a peat pot will serve as an additional fertilizer for seedlings.

You should choose a container based on your own preferences. But in any case, the container for seedlings must be spacious enough to allow planting a large number of seeds with a space between them.

Particular attention must be paid to soil preparation. The plant needs to be grown in nutritious and loose soil; usually, for planting seeds, turf soil and humus are mixed with the addition of potassium fertilizers and superphosphate.

Attention! For any seedlings, including rhubarb, contaminated soil poses a great danger. Before planting seeds, it is recommended to freeze the prepared soil, treat it with steam or a solution of potassium permanganate, even if the soil becomes a little poorer, this will cause less damage than possible pathogenic bacteria.

How to Plant Rhubarb Seeds

Planting rhubarb seedlings in the spring involves preparing seed material in advance.

4 days before the planned planting, the seeds are placed in a shallow container, filled with cool water and left to swell for 8-10 hours.
After this, the seeds are placed in a weak solution of potassium permanganate for 1 hour; this is necessary to disinfect the planting material.
After an hour, the seeds are placed on a thick layer of damp gauze or cloth and left for another 3 days.During this time, they should bend slightly, which will make it easier for the seeds to germinate in the prepared soil.

The sprouted seeds are sown in previously prepared soil - in small pots or a spacious container. In the latter case, 1-1.5 cm of free space should be left between the seeds when planting. The depth for the seeds is made small, about 2-3 cm; immediately after planting, the soil is watered and subsequently constantly kept moist.

Seedling care

Rhubarb shoots appear quite quickly - just 2-3 weeks after planting. Immediately after the first leaves appear from the ground, the container with seedlings should be moved to a lighted windowsill or to another bright but cool place.

Caring for the plant consists of regular watering, loosening and fertilizing. It is necessary to water the seedlings as the soil dries - the soil should always be slightly moist. It is recommended to loosen the soil once a week for better oxygen saturation, and every 2 weeks the seedlings should be supplied with universal complex fertilizers.

Advice! If the seeds were sown in a common container, then after a couple of leaves appear on the seedlings, the sprouts can be planted in separate pots and grown further in the usual way, so the plant will feel more comfortable.

Transplantation into the ground

Theoretically, rhubarb can be planted in open ground from a container in the spring or early summer, after the seedlings have become a little stronger. However, more often, transplantation is carried out 100 days after sowing the seed, in August or early September.In this case, the seedlings take root better in the open air, and there is enough time before the cold weather for the seedlings to take root properly. Another option is to transplant rhubarb in the spring the next year after the seedlings appear.

In any case, before planting seedlings in open ground, so-called hardening is carried out. Over the course of a week, the box or pots with seedlings are taken out into the air, first for a short time, just a couple of hours, and then for the whole day.

The process of transplanting seeds itself looks very simple - in a well-lit area, beds are prepared in advance that are suitable for growing rhubarb in terms of soil composition, and the seedlings are carefully transferred into the ground. In order not to damage the roots of the seedlings, it is recommended to preserve the old soil from the container as much as possible. Immediately after transplantation, the seedlings need to be watered well and grown according to the usual rules of care before the onset of cold weather.

How to grow rhubarb in open ground

Some gardeners don't see the point in planting rhubarb in home containers. The garden crop is characterized by high frost resistance and great endurance, so if desired, you can plant rhubarb with seeds directly into the soil in the open air.

When to sow rhubarb: in spring or autumn

It is recommended to plant seeds in open ground in the spring. In the middle zone and southern regions, this can be done from the end of April; in Siberia, it is recommended to wait until the final warmth sets in in the middle or end of May. The optimal temperature for planting and further growing rhubarb is 16-20 °C above zero, so the time for work must be chosen according to the weather.

Planting rhubarb in the fall is also quite acceptable.If you sow dry seeds in mid-October, then during the fall and winter the planting material will naturally have time to undergo hardening and soaking and sprout next spring. But in practice, spring planting is more common, since it coincides in time with most garden work.

Where to plant rhubarb

The main requirements of rhubarb for a planting site are a sufficient amount of sunlight and moist but well-drained soil with average acidity. Therefore, the plant should be planted and grown in a well-lit area or in the natural shade of fruit trees, and the pH level of the soil should be at least 4.5.

Since a perennial crop can be grown in one place for up to 15 years in a row, it is advisable to select the site taking this factor into account.

Preparing the beds

If the natural soil on the site does not meet the requirements of rhubarb for growing, then the beds must be specially prepared before planting. A couple of months before sowing the seeds, dig up the soil and add 3 buckets of humus per 1 square meter. m. of land. You can also add complex mineral fertilizers to the soil, they will contribute to the rapid growth of seedlings.

Immediately before planting rhubarb, grooves up to 1.5 cm deep are made in the beds, the distance between which is at least 20 cm. It is in these grooves that the seeds will fall, and the spaces are needed to ensure that the rhubarb seedlings are not located too close to each other.

How to plant rhubarb seeds in spring

Planting rhubarb seeds in spring in prepared beds is also permissible in dry form. But for faster growth, it is recommended to germinate them first; in this case, they will sprout not in 10-12 days, but in just 5-6 days.

Germinating seeds is not particularly difficult:

For 2 days, seeds for planting in the ground are soaked in clean water;
then the planting material is wrapped in moistened gauze and placed in a refrigerator for 10 days at a temperature of 0 to 5 °C above zero;
After the time has passed, the gauze with the seeds is removed and transferred to a warm place with a temperature of about 25 ° C, where small seedlings are waited for to appear.

The sprouted seeds are laid out in prepared grooves in the beds, the gap between individual seeds should be 5 cm. Then the seeds are covered with soil, and then wait for the first shoots. After the rhubarb sprouts produce the first 2-3 leaves, the seedlings can be thinned out a little so that the distance between individual sprouts is about 20 cm.

Important! As a rule, rhubarb is sown with seeds in the ground in a temporary place. A couple of years after germination, the grown plant will need to be moved to a permanent site and grown further in accordance with the usual rules.

How to propagate rhubarb by dividing the bush

Rhubarb propagation by division is carried out if there is already an adult bush of the desired variety on the site. The procedure is quite simple, but certain rules must be followed during the process.

The right time to plant rhubarb as a bush is from April to May before the buds begin to grow, or from September to October.
Rhubarb bushes 4-5 years old with strong thick petioles, a sufficient amount of green mass and without peduncles are best suited as planting material.
Planting holes for rhizomes should reach 50 cm in width and depth, since the plant is quite large.

The rhizomes are separated from the mother bush using a sharp shovel. It is necessary to release part of the mother bush from the ground, cut off part of the root with 2-3 growth buds on it and a developed root system, and on the same day transfer the seedling to the prepared hole.

It is necessary to pour a bucket of manure into the bottom of the planting hole, then place a mixture of peat and fertile soil, taken in equal proportions, in a layer of 5-7 cm. The rhubarb seedling is lowered in the center of the hole and filled to the top with the remains of peat and soil, gradually mixing 500 g of wood ash into the soil. The growth buds can be left above the surface of the ground or buried 3 cm, but in any case, after planting, the seedling must be watered and mulched with a layer peat

Advice! The interval between individual rhubarb bushes depends on the size of the plant. Between medium-sized seedlings you can leave 50 cm of space, between tall ones - from 70 cm to 1 m.

How to grow rhubarb correctly

Growing rhubarb and caring for it in open ground is not particularly difficult if you follow the basic rules.

Rhubarb likes moist soil, but does not tolerate waterlogged conditions. Therefore, you need to water the plant in accordance with weather conditions; the soil should be constantly moist, but without stagnant moisture.
For good growth, rhubarb plantings need to be fed with complex fertilizers, ash, mullein and bird droppings. Mature plants need feeding three times a season - in early spring before the leaves appear, after harvest and in late July or early August. As a rule, in the spring, mixtures containing nitrogen are applied for rapid growth, and in the summer and closer to autumn, potassium and phosphorus fertilizers are applied.Once every 3 years, it is recommended to treat the beds with the plant with fresh manure.
Throughout the summer, rhubarb beds must be weeded periodically to prevent weed growth. To ensure that the soil receives a sufficient amount of oxygen, the beds are carefully loosened after each watering or rain.

An important nuance of rhubarb care is regular removal of flower stalks. This is necessary to obtain stable and voluminous yields, for which gardeners begin to grow perennial crops.

Diseases and pests

The perennial plant is highly resistant to diseases and pests. However, sometimes rhubarb can be affected by powdery mildew, root rot or ascochyta blight, and among insects, the rhubarb bug and buckwheat fleas are especially dangerous for the crop.

The best way to prevent diseases is to follow all the rules for growing rhubarb. To prevent diseases and eliminate insects, it is recommended to treat the plant with fungicides and insecticidal preparations once a season. But this should be done only after harvesting, so that the rhubarb petioles do not absorb toxic substances.

Caring for rhubarb in autumn

In autumn, you need to grow rhubarb especially carefully, as the plant begins to prepare for winter.

Perennials need to be watered only in dry weather, so as not to over-moisten the soil before cold weather.
In early September, it is recommended to apply superphosphate and potassium fertilizers under the rhubarb bushes.

You can still cut leaves from the bush, but in the amount of no more than 1/3 of the total green mass. In the fall, rhubarb should focus on preparing for winter rather than recovering from pruning.

Should I cut rhubarb for the winter?

It is not recommended to trim green leaves of rhubarb in the fall, so as not to injure the plant. However, with the onset of cold weather, the green above-ground mass of the plant will die off naturally, and then it will need to be completely removed.

How to prepare rhubarb for winter

Rhubarb tolerates harsh winters well. But in order to avoid freezing, it must be insulated - covered with straw or fallen leaves in a layer of 7-10 cm. With the arrival of spring and warmer weather, the mulch will need to be removed so that the plant can produce new leaves and it can be grown again.

Conclusion

Rhubarb: planting and caring in open ground is an interesting activity for gardeners who want to grow a beautiful, tasty and healthy edible plant on their plot. Rhubarb can be planted and grown in a variety of ways, which makes it even more convenient to cultivate.