[hermon]

i have a coupe of small rows of leeks do they need to be earthed up to get the white bigger as i find a lot of waste with leeks only using the small white end also when are they ready? i have seen a couple of others peoples shoot up a flower spike i take it the leek will be no good?
is it also true you need to flood them with loads of water? :?

[milkman]

If they flower they are no good for eating - maybe they were last year's leeks that have been left to flower to encourage beneficial insects or to save the seed?
Earth up if you want to but why not eat the green bits as well as the white?

[hermon]

because the white tastes nicer

[James]

i have a coupe of small rows of leeks do they need to be earthed up to get the white bigger as i find a lot of waste with leeks only using the small white end also when are they ready? i have seen a couple of others peoples shoot up a flower spike i take it the leek will be no good?
is it also true you need to flood them with loads of water? :?

If you can be bothered, then earthing up wil make the whites longer.  But you are likely to get some soil inside the leeks - between the layers.  For competition growing, you should surround them with cardboard before earthing up, so as to avoid this.  Earthing up is a right faff.

Much better is to do this:  Plant your leek seeds in March/April as usual.  When they become like a long blade of grass - maybe 10 inches tall, but thin as anything, transplant them.  Take a dibber - a broom handle does well and make a hole that is 6" deep.  Use a watering can and hold the baby leek at the top of the hole, and water it in so that the bottom of the leek reaches the bottom of the hole.  (You are using the water to get the leek down to the bottom of the hole.)  Do not fill the hole with soil.

You then have a self-earthing leek.