November and March are ideal times of the year to divide rhubarb crowns to propagate new plants for other parts of your garden or to share with neighbours.
Divide rhubarb crowns into sections using a spade. Only divide established plants. You can divide rhubarb like this anytime really, throughout the winter, after the plant has stopped cropping until before the emergence of the new tender shoots in early spring.
To divide your rhubarb crown you should dig around and lift the whole clump out of the ground. Be careful to dig well around the plant and below, so that you don’t damage the roots. Once you have removed the root ball, you can cut it into sections using your spade.
Each section should keep a bit of the root and should retain 1-3 budding areas. Compost any decayed parts. Replant as soon as possible, be careful that the plant doesn’t dry out. If you plant more than one crown you should space plants about a metre apart.
Plant your new rhubarb crowns deep enough so that the buds are just below the surface of the soil. Water in well and then cover the crown with a mulch of straw to protect it in its first winter. When spring arrives it is good practice to add around 6cm of quality organic matter around (but not over) the crown so that it has a good feed of essential nutrients prior to producing its stalks.
It’s a good idea to divide rhubarb every five years or so to stop them getting overcrowded and to keep them vibrant. Rhubarb is a tough perennial that will last for years and years with very little care, but when rhubarb plants get old the stalks harvested are less tasty.
Rhubarb is a vegetable that is very easy to grow and harvest. It is happy in any kind of soil and hardy to the weather, but likes full sun. Rhubarb can also be sown from seed in spring, but division is the more common way to propagate rhubarb. Rhubarb stalks are the only edible part of the plant, the leaves are poisonous.
It is best to leave newly planted rhubarb for 2 years before harvesting from it so that it can fully establish itself. Rhubarb is ripe in the spring and summer, but you should wait to harvest until the stalks are at least 10 inches long. And it is a good idea to slow your harvesting in July so that the plant can recoup its energy to get through the winter.
Another good tip is to cut away seed stalks that appear to force the plant to continue producing its tasty stalks a bit longer. When the plant goes to seed it is a sign that it has finished cropping for the season, but by removing any seed stalks you can trick the rhubarb into giving you more.