Planting 69 Rhubarb Crowns in Cool Spring Soil

English | 日本語

Good morning, everyone.

It is currently 5:30 a.m. Today (April 13) is the exciting and enjoyable day for planting rhubarb. I was looking forward to it since last night. The temperature is 9°C. It’s a very comfortable temperature for both the rhubarb and the work.

Overview of the rhubarb ready for planting

Today’s planting starts from the 47th crown overall. For me, this is quite a large number, and it looks like we can expect a very abundant harvest. I’ll handle them with great care.

Newly emerging rhubarb flower 1

Newly emerging rhubarb flower 2

Small flower buds can already be seen here and there, so once all the planting is finished, I’ll remove the flowers.

Spacing the rhubarb plants 1 meter apart

I dig planting holes for the rhubarb crowns at 1-meter intervals. The holes are about twice the depth of the shovel blade. Small stones are still coming up from the soil. I’ll keep working.

Rhubarb crowns lined up at 1-meter intervals

I carefully plant them to avoid breaking the roots. Roots exposed to the air and dried out will not grow well, so I plant them as quickly as possible. I can already see a little insect damage on the leaves. The culprit is the striped flea beetle (Phaedon brassicae).

Striped flea beetle (Phaedon brassicae)

The striped flea beetle (Phaedon brassicae, also known in Japan as the daikon flea beetle) is a small leaf beetle about 3–4 mm long with a shiny black or dark green body that resembles a tiny scarab beetle. It especially loves the leaves of cruciferous vegetables such as turnips, daikon radish, napa cabbage, and komatsuna mustard spinach. When touched, it often drops suddenly and pretends to be dead. Since I practice organic farming, I remove them by hand. After all the planting is finished, I’ll check for beetles while removing the flowers.

All planting work completed

All the work was completed successfully. With this, the rhubarb planting is officially finished. From now on, I’ll regularly remove flower stalks and monitor for insect damage. In total, I planted 69 crowns. I’m excited to watch them grow. And I would also like to sincerely thank everyone who helped and supported this work.

Well then, that’s all for today!

Summary: Today I planted red rhubarb crowns in the cool soil of Fujimi. Can't wait to see the sprouts!