[lucywil]

You will need a 30ft row DD and sell the surplus spring onions on your stall.


Lucy -  Onions = round leaves. Leeks = flat leaves

Like i said no expert but now you mention it i did have that info in the back of my head some where!!

who's selling them? Salmo you should know thats against the rules in peterborough!!

[DD.]

I don't sell.

People donate and it's not me that gets the donations.

[mumofstig]

Monty makes a lot of sense as he usually does.

He grows the leeks 4 to a module until they are pencil size and then plants them out singly. A 24 module tray will produce 96 leek plants.

Sorry Salmo, but in this instance he was advising cluster planting 4-8 leeks, as also shown in the RHS link above. It is this idea that many of us are doubtful about

[Salmo]

Many apologies for not watching that link before making comment.

Looking at his shallow planting all one can presume is that he is growing pot leeks, i.e.leeks allowed to grow naturally at ground level, in which case yes it would work.

[JayG]

Thanks for all your replies; plenty to think about!

Think I shall hedge my bets; start them off sown a bit thicker than DD recommends but in a deepish container, then when ready to plant out tip them all out; those that are single will get planted singly, if there are any in clumps I will plant them "a la Monty" to see what happens.

I've only allocated about 3m X 1m for leeks so it won't be a disaster if it goes wrong, but I do like to experiement so hey ho, off we go (but not quite yet DD!  )

[gillie]

This sounds a lot like Lawrence Hills' method of growing 'leeks as fat as candles'.  You started the leeks in pots (or something, I can't remember) and then planted out bunches of four to six in a trench, gradually filling the trench as the grew.

I did this a few times.  It worked, but the spoil from the trench took up a lot of space.

Gillie