[Milly]

I've got some leeks ready to go in the garden and I've never grown them before. I read about making the hole, just putting the leek in and watering but have read somewhere about using toilet roll middles to stop soil/grit getting into the leaves and keeping the stem white.

I'm not sure how that works exactly because if I put the toilet roll over the leek when I plant it the earth wont be able to fill the hole.

Has anyone any experience of using them to keep the stems white and soil free?

[sunshineband]

Tbh I have never had a problem with soil getting in, and if you plant the leek itself quite deeply to start with (ie you can only see a couple of inches of green leaves) then there is plenty of white stem.

If you have enough space between the plants, you can earth them up along the row to blanch more stem, and earth still doesn't seem to get into them much

[mumofstig]

You don't want the hole to fill up  

When I grew leeks in raised beds, I used to dib the leeks in as normal, and then put loo rolls over the leeks a few weeks later, because I found that the level of the compost dropped such a lot before the winter, that I had no blanched leek stem, if I didn't use the loo rolls.
I hope that makes sense  

[JayG]

I do wot Sunny says, and there's no way I can stop my sandy soil filling the hole in, at which point I suppose I could slip a toilet roll tube over the stem but I've never tried it (yet!)

No problem with soil getting into the leek as long as you don't get soil between the leaves and the main stem (as I managed to do once when shaking the dirt off a weed without thinking too hard beforehand!) 

[sunshineband]

Some of my leeks end up a bit thick for toilet roll tubes (only some of them, mind  )

[mumofstig]

boasting again   

[Growster...]

Milly, you don't really need a loo roll tube at all, just dibble a hole about 6" deep, drop the leek in, and water with a can.

You don't need to do anything else and you'll get nice white stems from the bits below ground level!

Be careful not to let any soil drop in between the leaves as this will never get out until you harvest and prepare them for cooking!

[Milly]

Thanks, will recycle the loo rolls as something else then.

[AlistairMcLennan]

Just do not do as I did, I watered them in using the spray connected to the watertap lol  There was a lovely mud splash effect all over the leeks 

Lesson for this year, get the watering can & fill up the hole with water 

[Billnorfolk]

Can use your loo rolls for your runner beans ,set your seed beans in grow on plant in loo rolls no disturbing 

[Milly]

That looks impressive. Do you plant the loo rolls straight into the ground?

I forgot to say, I love Growsters phrase 'Just Dibble a hole' 

[Billnorfolk]

Yep put it in exactly as it is

[Jomtie]

I've got my carrots growing in loo rolls in an effort to encourage them not to fork.......not sure if it will work though! 

[DD.]

I can never work out how you can be faffed to plant out enough loo rolls to get a decent sized crop!

[Jomtie]

Because of our forking problem ( ) we only got about 2 usable carrots last year out of a metre square bed and even those weren't great. This year we thought we'd reduce the number of plants but try loo rolls in an effort to at least get a few more decent carrots.