Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: Tattieman69 on April 04, 2010, 22:36
-
I've decided to have a shot at growing leeks and have heard they are hard to grow, is this true?
-
no
-
easy peasy lemon squeasy
-
Sow them in a seed bed or in large pots and grow them on until they are about the thickness of a pencil. Make a hole about 6 inches deep with a dibber then place a pencil thin leek in it. Once they are all planted simply water the leeks in which will back fill the hole with moist soil. Leeks are generally pest and disease free although they can be bothered with the same ailments as onions (same family). Some types are prone to rust so its best to use rust resistant varieties.
-
Sow your seeds in a seeed bed, when the plants are pencil thick, transfer to final position.
Using a dibber make holes 4"- 6" deep 6"- 9" apart and drop a plant into each hole. Fill the holes with water, do not fill in with soil. Thats it! Water in dry weather and keep the bed weed free.
-
Yup, as others have said (particularly easy-peazy!).
I prefer starting them off in pots - I use pots about 12" diameter, from some trees I bought in the garden centre years ago. Two reasons: my soil is heavy clay and I don't have anything resembling a seed bed yet (cold, wet and idleness!) and also when it comes time to transplanting I find them much easier to separate from my nice pot of potting compost than anything grown in my only-good-for-making-bricks clay!.
Being a miserly person I use left over compost from last years tubs, potatoes grown in bags, etc., rather than fresh compost ... but a nice new bag of general purpose compost would do just fine of course
-
They also work well in fairly deep modules. Grown singly planting into a dibbed hole is trivial. I take out a flat trench 6-8" deep, dib holes 8" deep 8" apart into the bottom, drop a module grown plant into each hole and water in. Later in the year I earth up level with the soil I took out to make the trench. I sowed my Blue Solaise today. I plant in deeply worked and well composted soil that has had the First Early Potatoes in it.