[davejg]

I've potted up a couple of rhubarb crown to force in the green house, also found a couple of bin buckets that fit exatly inside the pots. The question is do i leave these buckets whole thereby ecluding all light, or make a hole in the base (now the top) to give the stalks somthing to reach for?

[Trillium]

The shoots will 'feel' the warmth of a light source outside the container and head for that, so no need to make any holes.

[Swing Swang]

And/or respond to gravity - geotaxis vs thermotaxis - in any case no hole required.
The traditional way to harvest shed-grown forced rhubarb is with a candle, which suggests zero light between cropping.

[fatbelly]

Has anyone's Rhubarb started to peep though yet.
Mine hasn't in the NW of England.

[DD.]

Forced some once.

Tasteless stuff.

[Kristen]

Really? (I mean "Surprised") I thought the whole point of forcing (such as they do in Yorkshire) was that it made them sweeter, no?

(Not tried it myself, never organised enough!)

[DD.]

Was not impressed at all, and of course it does the crown in for cropping the next year.

[davejg]

Thanks guys no holes it is, my first go at forcing inside

[RichardA]

I agree with DD that fully forced rhubarb is tasteless and boils away to nearly nothing when put in a crumble etc. Also that forced crown is then of little use for another season.
BUT BUT BUT what I do is to cover 2 or 3 crowns in January (just done it for this year) with dustbin and with some loose straw inside where they are in the garden. Once sticks are a good length (about mid March) unless weather is really frosty I expose sticks in day but cover at night for a few days and then uncover completely. Picking starts a week or so later.
Result seems to be stronger and tastier sticks and crown not weakened. Next year I use different crowns across the 8 or so I have in that patch. My happy acre is at home so I can clat about like this -- not so easy on allotment perhaps.
I dont need to force to get very early rhubarb as we freeze a lot in any case.