[JayG]

OK, this leek newbie dibbed 6" holes, dropped leeks in, double-checked that they were sitting on the bottom of their holes, watered gently, checked again to make sure a little but not too much soil was washed in, and have subsequently had to fiddle with one or two of them which were wilting having clearly not had enough soil or water on them.

If the whole point of this rigmarole is to make sure that at least the bottom 6" of leek will be white why can't you just bury them 6" deep when you transplant them? I can see that wouldn't work if the seedlings themselves were only that height but mine were at least twice that.  

[mumofstig]

The idea of the hole is to give them room to grow easily widthwise, I think

Some people just make trenches and plant at the bottom of those, progressively filling the trenches up as the season and growth progress. If you are transplanting a lot I think this would be a lot quicker 

[whippersnapper]

Is is not to prevent gritty leeks when cooking? ie. keep the soil out of the 'layers'?

I use my hoe upside down as a dibber i.e poke the handle into the ground. Works well because the height means you've got plenty of weight pushing downwards to get your deep hole.

This year has been the first that they were pencil thickness (just transplanted my fist batch this morning). I could easily see why it was necessary to snip off the roots, otherwise they would have fitted into the hole comfortably. But still can't understand why you'd snip off the leaves?! I know it's an old, old discussion but I'd still like to know why its recommended desipte whether it works or not!

[Snoop]

I could easily see why it was necessary to snip off the roots, otherwise they would have fitted into the hole comfortably.

Crumbs, it never occurred to me to snip the roots a bit shorter. It would probably have been a good idea. I had a devil of a job, winding them around like candy floss, to get them in.

Anyway, they're in. Planted them out a couple of days ago. Still, we've had so much rain since that the holes are pretty well full to the top with silt. The leeks are probably full of it too. Ah well. At least they're still alive.

[zazen999]

i just use a bulb planter - open up a hole, pop leek in, open another hole, pop another in.....ad infinitum. I tend to take the roots back just to make it easier to pick them up and drop them in.

The soil from the previous hole tends to fall in between successive holes, thus giving lots of soil ready to fall in and earth the leeks up.

This method works well for me as I have thick clay and dibbing with anything tends to hurt after a while as it takes alot of effort to get the dibber in deep enough.

[Yorkie]

Might try the bulb planter this year as an alternative, thanks ZZ99