Jerome Lee

Can rhubarb ever grow from a piece of root WITHOUT buds?

I saw this video on Youtube where a guy put 6000 seeds of various vegetables in a small bed, and checked what happens:
   
He got some good results with some vegetables like bok choys, but not so good with carrots. But most importantly, it seems like this strategy shut down the weeds.

This intrigues me. I don't like and don't have much time for weeding. I have a lot of space, so I don't need to maximize yields. Mulch is great with transplants, but more tricky with seeded plants.

Does anyone have experience with a more calculated version of that? Seeding things so densely you can't see soil and still getting good results? What plants would go well together? Peas and lettuce?

I have a small bed of aspargus (6-8 plants planted last year), unfortunately it got infested with the worst weed I know; quackgrass.

I'm at a point where I wonder if I should just kill the whole bed with a tarp, sacrificing the asparagus. Quackgrass can hardly be pulled in a way that removes all its rhizomes. I probably can't move the asparagus elsewhere, because I would likely bring the grass with it. Using plastic mulch seems impractical given that the asparagus pops up randomly (both in timing and location). I probably can't stack enough mulch that would defeat the quackgrass and yet let the asparagus live. I don't live sufficiently close to that bed that I could just pluck away the grass every day I see it.

Any tips?

I have a few rhubarbs I planted last year during the spring, and they've already been thriving beyond expectations. Next spring, I'd like to divide them again, but I'm wondering if it's too early?

Thanks for the replies so far. It is indeed less south facing than I thought it was, but here's a picture from google maps (top is north).

Snow coming down the roof is an interesting consideration. A trellis is definitely an option, at least for part of the wall.

The thing is, I have plenty of space that is better suited to, say, apple trees (full sun, better soil). Also, I wasn't particularly clear in my post, but I just want to cover the 3 or 4 feet that's covered by the plastic mulch.

I have a 100 feet south facing wall with poor soil (I don't know exactly how poor, but there was most likely "filler" soil added when it was built, and it's rich enough for grass to grow, but you can tell it doesn't grow particularly well). Building is 50 feet wide and it has no gutter, so when it rains, it gets lots of water on its sides, but it drains well enough.
I put some plastic mulch so that when I decide what to grow, the soil will be ready.

I want a cold hardy (zone 4) perennial that would ideally thrive in those conditions (i.e. I don't want to put tons of compost or have to weed it for years). Bonus points if they're edible, but ornamental plants are OK too.

It's a weird spot where it's basically full sun in the morning till noon, and nearly full shade thereafter. So I don't know what to make of that.

I have possibly hundreds of volunteer raspberries shrubs, but they don't produce that much. What should I do (in the way that is most cost and time effective) to make them productive? Cut them down so they get a fresh start? Fertilize them? Thin them out to give them less competition (how?)?

Are wild raspberries just that much less productive than commerical varieties?

What are the advantages of crown over root cuttings? You mention that root cuttings takes more work on our end. How so?

Chris Kott wrote:We start all our avocado pits. Most germinate.

We just do the toothpick suspension half-in a cup of water. We have over a dozen in soil as container plants, with the oldest, at 4 years old, taller than me.

-CK

I'd love to see a picture of your tallest one.