Growing Rhubarb

ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT GROWING RHUBARB
There’s so many ways to prepare rhubarb (basically, you have not lived if you have never tried a warm, fragrant home-made rhubarb pie) yet despite its good qualities and nuanced flavor, not too many people actually come to the point where they decide to grow it. It might be some strange misconception circulating around the topic of rhubarb planting but actually you will see that, apart from the planting process, there is nothing much else you are supposed to do.

Rhubarbs become dormant during cold or very hot weather plus they are not needy at all which means that you will be able to sleep tight knowing that your rhubarbs are self-sufficiently producing those delicious, juicy stems that can later be turned into great dessert or used as supplement to some other foods.
THE PROCESS OF PLANTING

Seeds. vs. crowns? Planting rhubarbs does not differ much from planting any other crop and, once you have made the decision to carry on with planting rhubarbs, you have only two options. First one is growing from the seed but keep in mind that in that case you will have to wait for significantly longer period of time until you will be able to harvest all the precious rhubarbs you have grown. Second option is to plant so called ‘crowns’ or ‘budded pieces’. Planting these does not require too much of a gardening skills or experience and it is not that easy to mess the whole process up. You will be able to manage it even if you’re still a novice in the world of gardening. If you go for the second option, the crop will be produced in the harvest season that follows after the planting. Now, after learning the difference between the two methods, it is not that hard to make a guess which one is more popular and more advisable to be picked. But as always, you can follow your personal preferences since you are the only ruler of your garden kingdom.
When to grow?
As soon as spring has arrived and ground is not hard anymore, you can start planting your rhubarbs. The best period to do this is between January and March. Keep in mind that you won’t be able to harvest any stems during the first growing year.
How to plant?
The planting process itself is not complicated at all. Simply tuck rhubarb plants into soil which is a bit acidic and contains organic matter and compost. You do not need to plant too deep, 4 inches will be perfectly fine. Keep the plants watered and make sure the soil is constantly moist during the entire growing season. Once the rhubarb flowers appear in the spring, you can cut those so that the plant would utilize more energy in making stems not flowering.
Where to plant?
Speaking of location, you should seek a partially shaded spot. In full sun, your rhubarbs will thrive but only in shade will they yield properly. Also keep in mind that rhubarbs will occupy quite a lot of space, so do not squeeze them in with some other important plants,  give them plenty of space.
HARVESTING
You should see first pink rhubarb stems appearing around April but they can be harvested only during the second year. Of course, it will be tough for you to resist and not to try the first of the stems but remember that only the second year crops are those delicious ones and you don’t run the risk of killing off the plant. The period of harvest is quite long – from April to June and it is easy to tell when the rhubarbs are ready. Basically there are two indicators that will tell you whether your rhubarbs are ready to be harvested or not, namely: leaves and stems. The leaves should be completely unfurled and the stems should have stretched in length to around 12″ but this depends on the variety so read the description first to know how long and thick, and in what sort of colour ready stems should be.  When picking the rhubarb, it is easier if you pull it from the base of the stem and simply quickly twist it. But do not harvest all of your stems if you want the crown to stay fruitful through next seasons as well. Take no more than half of the ready rhubarb stems.

PROPAGATING
For propagating purposes you will have to dig up the crowns every 4 to 5 years  as you will need to either trim them down or to divide to create more plants. Select those pieces where the buds are visible as these ones have a higher chance of being successfully propagated. You should be doing this in the period between November and March while the plant is still dormant. By doing everything correctly it should be possible to make up to 6 plants from one crown. Of course there is never a 100% chance that your buds will successfully grow but it definitely is a great achievement and pride for every gardener to manage to propagate your own rhubarb plants.

RHUBARB VARIETIES
You might think that all the rhubarbs probably taste the same but upon trying different varieties you will surely notice the difference not only in the taste but also in relation to other qualities such as texture, structure, color, smell, sourness/sweetness etc. Here are some of the rhubarb varieties that one should surely grow in the U.K. when thinking of enriching your garden with some of this gorgeous vegetable:
Livingstone. Rhubarb variety which is usually sold as autumn-cropping rhubarb and it keeps producing new shoots in summer. Ready to be harvested from September.
Raspberry Red. This rhubarb variety can be harvested early in the season, without the need for forcing. Produces particularly thick and red stems.
Timperley Early. Regarded as the earliest maturing variety, suitable for forcing to provide tender pink sticks as early as February,
Giant Grooveless Crimson. This variety will produce tall, fully colored, bright red stems with less acidic flavor.
Fulton’s Strawberry Surprise. Produces vivid red stems with a well-balanced acidity.
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Growing Sweetcorn

How to Grow Sweetcorn
Sweetcorn is a form of the maize that once fuelled the Aztec empire. It remains a staple food of the Americas because it is incredibly versatile and nutritious – but unlike most staple foods, its flavour is anything but bland. These yellow, cone-shaped cobs are full of succulent goodness.

Sweetcorn kernels add crunch to stir-fries, pizzas or salads. When cooked with cream and chicken they make a hearty soup called chowder which is a joy to eat on chilly days. However, the greatest pleasure is perhaps a whole cob simply cooked and plonked into a bowl with a creamy knob of butter and salt and pepper dashing.
You may have purchased ‘fresh’ cobs from the supermarket before but were probably disappointed with the outcome, you may even have found them woody, bitter and inedible. If so, you are probably wondering why you would devote a large portion of your precious growing land to cultivating the crop. Well, if you haven’t tried corn on the cob fresh from the garden then you haven’t really tried corn on the cob. Even the best organic stallholders could not bring you anything close to the flavour punch you get from chomping down hard on your own home grown corn. This is because sweetcorn should be eaten less than one hour after picking, and preferably straight away. The moment a cob is picked its flavour is on an auto-destruct timer as it begins to convert all of its natural sugars into starch. In 24 hours it will have lost over half its sugars, so no wonder the cobs you buy from retailers taste foul, most of them have been on the shelf for days, for days! Once you try the real thing you will almost certainly be happy to sacrifice ground for sweetcorn despite each plant only yielding two or three cobs.

Read on if you want to learn how to grow sweetcorn that will sit amongst your most precious bounties at harvest time:    
Varieties
There are literally thousands of varieties of maize in all different shapes, sizes and colours. Some corns are blue, purple, red and even green. In parts of rural Central America each individual village is renowned for its own kind of maize which the locals trade between each other in the larger towns. There are currently ongoing efforts by international organizations to catalogue and preserve the various types in case they go extinct due to incursions by big agribusiness strains.
Here are some exotic kinds of corn for the more adventurous to experiment with:
Indian Summer
Sweetcorn with multi-coloured kernels, yellow, red and purple. It has large, sweet cobs but needs to be planted early in Britain.
Minipop
Minipop produces micro-cobs of the kind you might have had in stir-fries from Chinese restaurants. It grows tall and produces a lot of cobs that can even be eaten raw. It will do fine in our climate.
Mirai White

A pure white sweetcorn with a very creamy taste. It is a late cropper but quite hardy in Britain.
The exotic types are fun but here in the UK we are mostly concerned with growing a few sweetcorn strains that suit our tastes. The following types of corn are standard varieties that are easy to grow in Britain:
Lark
Lark is an extra-sweet corn that thrives in the UK due to its ability to withstand cooler temperatures. It also produces its cobs early, though not many of them.
Swift
Reliable and well-suited to the British climate. It seldom fails and produces plenty of cobs with a sweet creamy taste.
Conqueror
A UK allotment favourite with a great sounding name. It is a tall variety with big cobs that produces late in the season. It has a succulent taste and can often produce three cobs per plant.
Planting (Seedlings)
Sweetcorn seeds are the yellow kernels we eat. You can buy packets of kernels that are suitable for planting. You may plant kernels straight into the ground if you wish. But this is not usually the best way to plant corn in the UK because our ground is too hard and cold in springtime. This is particularly true in the north. Instead, it is better to set the plants away in a greenhouse, cold frame or even indoors.
When it comes to planting sweetcorn, earlier is better because the plant takes a long time to grow good, tasty cobs. You need to give the plants a strong start so that they can reach full-fruition during summer before colder months come and stifle the growth. March is the usual time to start sweetcorn off but some keen growers start as early as February indoors. If you miss the boat you can start them as late as May, but be aware that your plants may only have enough summertime to produce stunted cobs.
When setting corn away early you should use a propagator with a Perspex lid to keep your seedlings nice and warm. To keep each seedling separate you could use plastic seed trays with individual cells. But a better way is to save up your old toilet roll tubes and use those; they are fully biodegradable, work well with corn, and mean that you can plant the whole pot.
Get your stack of tubes and cut each in half. Put them into your propagator tray and fill each with compost. Make a 2.5 cm (1”) deep hole in the centre of each pot and drop a kernel in, then press the soil down lightly. Water the whole tray liberally, pop the Perspex lid on and place them in your cold frame, greenhouse, or on your windowsill. Give them a little water daily thereafter – don’t let them dry out, but don’t drown them either.
When the seedlings get to be around 2cm (3/4”) tall you may notice some pots have an extra plant. Pull out the weaker plants and move the tray outside to toughen them up.  

Planting (In the Ground)
You can plant your corn pots in the ground from May. Corn needs to be pollenated in order to create cobs and it can’t rely on insects so uses wind instead. You have to help the process by planting your corn in directly adjacent, matching rows.
You will need a large area for a decent amount of corn, so designate a rectangular bed with good drainage that will get plenty of bright sunlight. A bed that has been previously well-manured is good. According to an old gardener’s tale planting corn near runner beans creates tastier corn due to some kind of cross-pollination affinity with plants from native climes. Fun but unconfirmed. However, do not plan to put different strains of sweetcorn near each other, they really don’t like it.
When you have settled on a spot, dig over the ground and remove all weeds. Rake over to make the soil fine.
On the prepared ground, use a bulb planting tool or a trowel to create adjacent rows of cylindrical holes the same depth as your cardboard sweetcorn pots. The holes should be 35cm (14”) apart with 60cm (24”) between rows to form a big rectangular grid. Now place one of your sweetcorn tubes into each hole and pack them in with soil. Water the whole area well and leave the rest to nature.
Maintenance
The plants should settle outside and gain strength and size within a few weeks. Keep the ground around them weed free at all times – sweetcorn craves loads of sunlight so don’t let anything get in the way.  
In the hottest months keep your corn well-watered at the base so as not to burn the leaves. You may also wish to scatter some organic fertilizer granules.
In windy areas it is fine to tie your corn to a cane if need be. Mounding up earth around the base of each stem will also help with support.
Harvesting
Your corn will be almost ready when you start to see long white silky threads trailing from the cobs. Keep an eye on these threads because when they turn brown it’s time to pick. You can test a cob by carefully opening it and squeezing a kernel. If the juice is watery then allow the cob a few more days, if it is milky you are good to go. Twist cobs off with your hand and run home to cook them before they go bad!

Now you know all about growing sweetcorn, what are you waiting for, go ahead and start stacking cobs!
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