Rhubarb is a useful garden plant of the buckwheat family, brought from Southeast Asia. Cultivated rhubarb in Russia was brought by the great Russian traveler and scientist-geographer N.M. Przhevalsky. Later it was found out that wild varieties of rhubarb are found in Siberia, the Far East and the Caucasus.
The plant is rich in vitamins, pectin and mineral substances. Rhubarb is useful for improving blood circulation, it can be used to make jam , compote and oven with rhubarb pies .
Planting a crop and caring for a rhubarb does not require a trucker to spend significant time. And the plant is unpretentious: frost-proof, does not require much light.
How to grow a rhubarb?
Rhubarb is bred in two ways:
- division of the rhizome;
- seedlings grown from seeds.
How to plant a rhubarb by dividing the rhizome?
Developed, but little-flowering rhubarb bush (age 3 - 4 years) with fleshy petioles is excavated in the spring. Knife the root is divided into parts, each should have rootlets and growth buds. The parts are planted at a distance of at least 20 cm from each other.
How to grow a rhubarb from seeds?
Seeds are soaked in a solution of water with ash for three days and germinated in a wet cloth to shoots measuring 1 - 2 mm. Then give them a little dry. Sow the rhubarb into the shallow grooves of wet earth in October or April. Experienced gardener notes that the rhubarb seeds have poor germination even with quality seed and good care.
Growing rhubarb and caring for it
After the appearance of leaflets, every 2 weeks they are fed with complex fertilizers, slurry or bird droppings. Young plants should be watered regularly.
Care of the rhubarb includes weeding, loosening of the soil. In May, the plant has floral stems, they are constantly growing throughout the summer. In case there is no need for seeds, they are cut off when they appear.
When to tear a rhubard?
The stalks of the stem are broken (not cut!) For the second year of planting. In young plants it is undesirable to cut more than 3 stems at once, because the remaining stump will rot. It is also important not to break the apex bud.
Rhubarb cuttings have useful properties if they are ripped off in the spring or early summer. Ragged stems accumulate oxalic acid, which is harmful to the human body, because it causes precipitation of calcium.
Diseases and pests of rhubarb
- Rhubarbia rhubarilliosis. On the petioles of the plant, and sometimes the leaves appear small spots of red-brown color, the middle spots gradually turn pale. Then the spots merge and the leaves wither. Infection is long maintained in the ground. In order to destroy the disease, the rhubarb in autumn is sprayed with a Bordeaux mixture.
- Askochitis rhubarb. On the leaves there are large brick-colored spots. The leaves dry up, the plant tissues crack. The infection remains on plant remains. To combat akschitis, a Bordeaux mixture is also used.
- Rhubarb weevil. A small brown or gray beetle 0.5 cm long. In the spring devoured leaves of rhubarb. In order to combat pest
planting before flowering and at the end it is treated with 40% phosphamide. - Cabbage and potato scoop. Caterpillars damage rhizome rhizome and petioles. The leaves become twisted, the plant grows poorly. Damaged stems are cut off. If nearby plants grow like burdock and thistle, the weeds are destroyed, as the females of the scoop lay eggs in them.
- Sorrel leaf beetle. The pest leaves holes. Control measures are similar - cutting sick leaves.