RHUBARB (2) 

Roughly a year ago, I stuck my spade into my mother-in-law's rhubarb plant and took half of it away to be planted in my kitchen garden. It did pretty well, rhubarb obviously being hardy things, and I got a fair few sticks from it during the course of 2012. However, when I came to turn over the soil back in February, I forgot that there was a rhubarb bulb sitting in the corner. Since it was mid-winter and the soil was quite hard,  I mistook the bulb for hard earth and diligently hacked it into small pieces. Which made me rather sad.

However, what works once can also work twice. So I asked my mother-in-law if I could hack off another bit of her plant, and do the same thing again. Rather surprisingly, she told me I could take the rest of it. So I dug it up last week, and transplanted it. It is already thriving, with seven or eight stalks beginning to poke through the soil. So it looks as if 2013's crop will be pretty good.

As for the rest of the kitchen garden, it looks pretty much the same as last year, and is all set for me to plant the potatoes tomorrow or Monday. The one major difference is that I have cut down a lot of the overhanging trees on the left, in order to let in more sunlight. Last year's potato plants stood at roughly 45 degrees, as they sought the sun over on the right. They should have an easier time of it this year.

Walter Blotscher