When should I start thinking about sowing leek seeds?

And how, of course?(:-)

Alan
--
Reply to alan(at)windsor-berks(dot)freeserve(dot)co(dot)uk

On Thu, 6 Feb 2003 17:35:49 -0000, "Alan Holmes"
wrote:


When should I start thinking about sowing leek seeds?

And how, of course?(:-)

Depends when you want 'em!
For show purposes you ought to think about sowing them now, in
modules.
For culinary use you have a couple more weeks.
For a later crop you could just sow them straight into the soil in
trenches from early April onwards and avoid all that
thinning/transplating malarkey.

They like a fairly rich soil - it's one of the crops that does really
well on a well-manured clay soil ( you get less grit in them too! ),
though harvesting is a problem if your soil is too firm ( right now
the soil is so wet I can hand pull them up! ).

The thing is, they take a good 30 weeks or so to come into size - so
you have to think about whether you want them before Christmas or
after - and whether you want a crop in the following spring or not.

I like to get two batches in - one to give me leeks through the late
Autumn, and another to give me leeks from January onwards.

Two popular methods of growing on are the trench method and the hole
method. I find trenching leeks to be a bit of chore - you plant the
young leeks out in 6 inch deep trenches and gradually earth up as the
season progresses. This has to be done to blanch the stems, or you end
up with a lot of waste greenery.
The hole method involves pushing a six inch ( or more, depending on
variety ) hole in the soil with a suitable dibber and simply dropping
the transplants in...a quick water in and you're done. If you want to
be pedantic you can even align the flags so the leeks line up neatly
when grown.

I tend to trim my transplants, removing the tips of the roots and the
tips of the leaves. The roots are brittle and tend to get damaged with
handling, so hacking them off prompt the leeks to put out new roots.
Trimming the leaves lessens moisture loss at a delicate time for the
young leek.

I've had good results by being careful ( planting in modules,
transplanting without disturbing the roots etc. ) and by being
carefree ( sowing thirty or so seeds in a pot, tipping out the
combined rootball and pulling the leeks apart ) - so you can assume
that the leek is a tough little bugger.
You can buy transplants from nurseries from March onwards - saves a
lot of effort with sowing/cold frames etc.

Musselburgh is a good, tasty standard variety - though it doesn't keep
that firm over winter and has a shortish shank. King Richard stands
better and has a good long shank, Appolo is sort of inbetween.

I like to leave a few leeks to grow over into the second year - I pop
them in the back of the flower beds and they put on a lovely display
when they flower....and the bees love 'em.

Regards,



--
Stephen Howard - Woodwind repairs & period restorations
http://www.shwoodwind.co.uk
Emails to: showard{who is at}shwoodwind{dot}co{dot}uk

Stephen Howard wrote:

I find trenching leeks to be a bit of chore - you plant the
young leeks out in 6 inch deep trenches and gradually earth up as the
season progresses.

I do trenching, but my rototiller has an attachment that makes very nice
6"+ deep trenches, after a couple of passes to loosen the soil. The rest
is as described, though I don't have leeks like those contest winners in
the U.K.! (Which I understand are inedible. Pity.)


Gary Woods AKA K2AHC- PGP key on request, or at www.albany.net/~gwoods
Zone 5/6 in upstate New York, 1200' elevation. NY WO G