A SIMPLE QUESTION ABOUT RHUBARB.

Rhubarb is originally from Siberia, I doubt the frost will do much damage as we do not get anything like the true permafrost they witness every year.

They also get two metres of snow on top to protect it ! 

8doubles where in Wales do you experience permafrost?     

Luckily here in Milford Haven serious frosts are not common (famous last words) but we just had a nasty hailstorm !

I know permafrost really means 365 days frozen but even in sunny Hants where i used to live the frost could stay in the ground for over a month .
To be honest run of the mill frosts could do more damage as the freeze-thaw-freeze cycle is what brings down mountains.

I don't even take the leaves off... They rot so quickly and provide extra food in my experience

I do the same from September, when you feel its time to stop picking and the remaining are looking a bit straggly, just break the leaves off and spread around the rhubarb crown.
The crowns are all just brown stubs now.
I do throw veg peelings around them over the winter rather than manure, it always rots quickly around the rhubarb. I'm sure the plants have arms and drag it in quicker.

I thought you only covered them to force early and should only do it say every few years at minimum.
But down here they start cropping in March/April and continue to end Sep.

 
Here is another hoary old question about covering rhubarb crowns or not!¬

About three years ago I accompanied a pal on a visit to his granddads small farm for a visit!
He had an old fashioned byre with a run off channel at one end for cows urine and some slurry!

There was a massive bed of rhubarb growing in the swampy soil and slurry, from what I could see the crowns were well covered with the gunge.

Didn't think about it at the time but when it comes up here, I find some answers completely at odds with what I saw as the massive clump must had been there growing for yonks!

And I have covered my crowns with manure or compost when I have top dressed my rhubarb!

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Sounds like rhubarb heaven !

I always grow mine next to the compost heap so it benefits from any run off or leaching !

UGH!!

And to think the world is going to come to an end if someone dares to use a handful of growmore or a few slug pellets, especially when rhubarb is grown like this!

 

What a wonderful array of advice on rhubarb!!  You could write a book on it!  I find it helps to grow the 'set' on a mound of soil with plenty of grit in the soil if heavy with clay.  I have eight plants on my plot, cannot get enough of it! although my partner would not agree.

Mike.