Thursday, July 11

We now have leeks

We managed to get our leeks in this week. Strangely our leek planting often seems to coincide with a period of dry weather causing some difficulty when  trying to make the required holes in the soil without them filling back up as soon as the dibber is removed!

This year once the bed had been prepared, a few weeks ago, it was covered in what has now become the familiar weed control fabric.
To plant the leeks rows of cross cuts were made in the fabric a suitable distance apart and a dibber used to drill holes in the ground at each cross slit. This year the holes kept their shape so maybe the fabric had prevented the soil from becoming too dry. At least it should have helped cut down on wind induced evaporation.
A leek seedling was dropped into each hole. We haven't trimmed the roots or tops of the seedlings for years now and we still end up with good leeks.
Once a leek had been popped into each hole it was filled up with water. This settles the seedling in and pulls it down snugly into the hole as the water drains into the soil.

The holes in the fabric should be plenty wide enough to allow the leeks to grow to a decent harvesting size. As usual we have planted plenty. We have three varieties Prizetaker, Blue Solaise and Giant Winter. Ironically the Giant Winter seedlings were the tiniest seedlings of the three.

We're hoping the use of the fabric will work for the leeks as well as it seems to be working with the onions and shallots shown below.
Update:
We found that planting the leeks in cross slits in the fabric made then difficult to harvest so we now cut long slits in the fabric and plant through those as we do for carrots and parsnips. (As shown here)



16 comments:

  1. That's another job on my to do list, plant out leeks. I'm sure I've usually got them in by now.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We are later this year, Jo as last year we planted out the leeks on 14 June.

      Delete
  2. Our Leeks are still in the Greenhouse. I don't know how big they should be to plant out ? I have looked carefully at yours and will pop out now to compare them. Thank you for sharing how you do it. Marion

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ours were a variety of sizes Marion. The recommendation is that the seedlings be pencil size! Some of ours were very much smaller in width to a pencil. We've never found the size to be so significant as long as the seedlings are large enough to handle and don't disappear completely down the hole!

      Delete
  3. what a lovely post and thank you for sharing

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousJuly 11, 2013

    Good effort with the Leeks Sue. I'm holding off thinning and re-planting mine until the weather cools down a bit.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ours were fairly desperate to get into the ground, Rooko

      Delete
  5. Are you sure you haven't got shares in the weed control fabric industry! ha ha. A time consuming job but it certainly pays off in keeping the weeds down. I have run out of space in my garden so have planted my leeks out in troughs - I don't suppose they will get very big though. p.s. your post about the young bird and your pond - I tried to reply to your reply about your dog thinking it was grass but for some reason it wouldn't let me comment - that happened to us too - you ought to have seen the shocked look on our dogs face when he sank!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No shares but maybe I should get some, Elaine :)

      I think mine was the most shocked face as I just thought "How am I going to get her out before she drowns?" She doggy paddled through the group of fish being fed and came out with no weed or anything in her fur. After that we had to hold on to her when throwing food in. She also used to take her ball to the edge and drop it in!

      Delete
  6. I have never just dibbed mine into a hole and they always seem to come out OK. Also I never knew that the tops and roots should be trimmed so have never done that either. I guess no matter how long you garden for you are always learning new things!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. As I said before it's not an exact science, Tanya. We stick to what works for us!

      Delete
  7. Lovely to see your leeks going in, they are so much bigger than mine! As usual I'm overwhelmed by how much fruit and veg you plant....amazing! Those onions and shallots look fantastic!xxxx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We just have the space to do it Snowbird. The leeks were are sorts of sizes some very small. So small that I couldn't decide whether I had popped one in the hole or not.

      Delete
  8. Replies
    1. They have quite a bit of growing to do yet L to be SS

      Delete

Thank you for visiting and leaving a comment - it is great to hear from you and know that there are people out there actually reading what I write! Come back soon.
(By the way any comments just to promote a commercial site, or any comments not directly linked to the theme of my blog, will be deleted)
I am getting quite a lot of spam. It is not published and is just deleted. I have stopped sifting through it and just delete any that ends up in my spam folder in one go so I am sorry if one of your messages is deleted accidentally.
Comments to posts over five days old are all moderated.