Nettles around rhubarb

[bright_lights19]

Hiya, my rhubarb was surrounded by nettles last year and now they've started growing again I remembered how bad they got. Any ideas how I could get rid of them? Many thanks

[veggiechicken]

Hi and welcome!
Put your thick gloves on and pull them out before they're too big. Try to remove as much of the yellow root as possible, Its really quite satisfying

[sparrow100]

This time of year mine come out of the wet ground fairly easily if they are little. Is digging them out with a hand fork an option? You need to get all the yellow root out, or as much as you can. Otherwise, if you have some dry days forecast you can spot-kill them with weedkiller. Either put weedkiller on your glove and apply it to the nettle that way or cut off the bottom of a plastic bottle, put it over the plant and spray down the top opening. If you screw the top back on the plastic bottle at that point and shove the base into the ground a bit that gives more chance for the weedkiller to work.

[Guest]

Be careful if you use weed killer as rhubarb is very sensitive to it. If you are quick and there is not to much life showing in the rhubarb you could lift it and move it or lift then dig and pull all the nettle roots and replant. It is a bit drastic but if like me your nettles have become rather established it might be for the best.

[BertieFox]

Use a sharp weeding tool to slice out as much of the nettle root as you can, and then cover the ground around the rhubarb plant with thick cardboard. Cover the cardboard with a thick mulch. Not only will this suppress most of the nettle growth but it will feed your rhubarb too. Cover the entire rhubarb plant with the mulch in fact (but obviously not cardboard) and you will get a nice lot of young, tender pink rhubarb stems under the mulch in a few weeks.