Let’s get ready to crumble! It’s rhubarb planting season along with blueberries and onions
Now is the best time of year to plant new rhubarb crowns, settling them into rich, fertile soil to which well-rotted manure or lots of homemade compost has already been added.
Rhubarb is a long-lived plant and will continue to crop for many years, but it is best not to pick any leaves the first year so that the plant can build up reserves.
Rhubarb is of course a vegetable, not a fruit, although crumble lovers may argue otherwise but blueberries are definitely the latter and these can also be planted now. They need to grow in acidic soil, so if yours is neutral or alkaline, grow them in large pots of ericaceous compost.
Blueberries can take a few years to really get going but they should eventually start producing a decent crop, although you may have to net them if you don’t want the birds to get to them first.
If you want to add an apple, pear or plum tree to the garden, then choose from the bare root stock that is now available to plant during the winter months. However, if there’s a history of honey fungus in your garden, choose a potted tree instead because there is a chance that the tiny wounds to the roots that happen when the trees are removed from the soil, can allow access for the disease.
Next month, when temperatures are colder, you can also plant new raspberry and blackberry canes, allowing them time to become established before they start into growth next spring.
Meanwhile, it is time to plant onion and shallot sets, setting them so that the tips of the bulbs stick up slightly above the soil.
Do all this and you will have set up your garden and allotment to provide you with lots of delicious food in the years ahead.
But before all of that happens, there are still winter salads, crisp kale leaves, fresh cabbages and Brussels sprouts to be enjoyed and, if you have potted up some parsley, then a fresh sprinkling of herbs to be scattered on warming soups.