[sumitra]

Hi I am a newish allotment holder. Last year I was given some leek seeds from my cousin in Co Durham They were very good, large and very tasty, so I left 2 of them in the plot to go to seed.  Wich they did the bees loved them, when they finished flowering I cut the heads and hung them in my greenhouse to finish,    

Yesterday I was getting the plot ready for next year and as these 2 leeks had now finished their reproduction so I decided to dig them up,  but to my supprise on the first one there were 3 very large bulb attached to the old stem with roots coming from the bottom of each of them. (about 2 inches oval dia and 1 and a half inches high)  I asked around some of the experianced gardeners but noboby I asked had come across this before. can anybody advise me on what they are? and what to do with them? 

Straker

[DD.]

These are leek offsets and are quite common is a leek is left to run it's course.

They can be transplanted to grow on, but it's usually easier to sow more seed, but I suppose it's a way of propagating a good leek.

[mumofstig]

They are just basal bulbils, and can be used to grow new leeks.
Leeks make seed, sometimes bulbils on the seed heads and sometimes bulbils on the basil plate lots of ways to propagate them  

http://horticulture.oregonstate.edu/content/leeks-0

[sumitra]

Hi.  Thank You for your replies.  I am getting interested in the different ways to grow leeks, I think My cousins in Durham pick some of the best of their show crop and cut them down to a short lenth and replant them wich grows a grass like efect at the top of the plant and these grasses finish up as a type of leek seeds, very close or exact copies of the plants they are taken from.  I hope they dont see this as I may be giving away one of their secrets.  I didn't ask them about the bulb type groaths as the are in Co Durham and I am in Staffordshire.

Straker