"michael adams" replied after

"Janet Baraclough" wrote

Last spring I never got round to pulling up the last of the winter
leeks. They put up flowers. For months this summer, they have been
magnificent strong 4ft-high stems with huge globular purple flowers; so
handsome and attractive (to people and insects) that I'm going to do
the same next year.

I've been waiting for the seeds to ripen, which they're not yet.
Meanwhile, on just one or two of the seed-heads, something odd has
happened. From the place in the middle where the individual
flower-stalks grow out of, lots of little green sprouts have emerged,
several inches long; at the base of each stem is a tiny round green bulb
like a baby onion. They're firmly attached to the parent.

If these are germinated seeds, why are they not attached to the
flower-end of the stalk where the seeds form? Why do they look like
minute onions not straight and narrow like seedling leeks?

...

They're pips or bulbils and are deliberately cultivated by show growers
as a means of propagating prize strains. They'd probably be cossetted
and over-wintered under cover.


michael adams

...


I picked off a few of these green babies, shoved them into the soil and
they're growing away happily. Will they overwinter successfully, to be
leeks next year?

Michael is quite right, the biggest and best show leeks are often grown from
pips. I've tried it myself and yes you will get good leeks next year but you
need to pot them up as they grow and look after them over winter, cosset
them even.
These pips are so sought after I had one head covered in superb pips stolen
from my allotment a couple of years ago, neatly cut off it was.
The blue heads are also good for flower arranging btw. The smell can be got
rid of in the normal florists way by standing them in a weak solution of
bleach for a couple of hours.

--
Regards
Bob
In Runnymede, 17 miles West of London