yummy , nutritious Allium porrum are leisurely to spring up from semen — though they ’re definitely slow — and by including them in your garden repertoire , you gain a green vegetable that you may grow once the chaos of summer ontogeny has passed . Leeks even grow in snow !
Not only do leeks stretch out the gardening season , but they load yourfood dollar . At grocery storage scallion often cost $ 1 to $ 2 each or more , and a considerable amount of the store - buy Allium porrum may be tough and require to be cut aside to disclose the tender blanched philia . By expend a few dollar mark on a bundle of seeds , you could end up harvest home 20 pound or more .
Homegrown leeks tend to be smaller than the jumbo leek from the grocery store stock or farmers market . They may pick up less irrigation and plant food in your garden than on a farm , and that can be a respectable thing , as you ’ll waste much less waste of the vegetable . Your homegrown leeks wo n’t have so many tough or discredited out foliage , and there will be less soil to move out from the between the many layers . ( As leeks mature , gardeners typically mound soil up around the stems to pale them , and a fate of grease seeps down into the plant . )
Leeks , copious in vitamins and protein , are good for more than just white potato vine - and - scallion soup . Caramelized Allium porrum make a grand pizza topping , and they supply a lot to soups and stews . They can be baked and top off with a ointment sauce . Even the immature leeks in the garden can be used in place of green onion or Allium sativum . The flavor is milder than either , and the texture when cooked can be almost creamy .
Growing Leeks
Nan K. Chase
Allium porrum uprise best in a deeply worked soil that ’s plentiful incompost . They do n’t like enceinte clay soil . By wrick over your garden ground to a astuteness of a foot or so , drainage is improved and the prepare origin can easily spread out and harness nutrients from the soil . And they will develop attractive square and thick stalks . If your grime is high in clay content , you’re able to set it by work in a lot of compost .
Your scallion - planting schedule may depend onwhere you experience . In the hot southerly tier of the country , the soil may retain plenty of warmth right through the evenfall and into the winter calendar month ; come can go right into the footing and will arise through the winter for a spring harvest home .
In the colder latitudes , you could plant leek seeds or seedling start earlier , right on in the ground in spill , but you might not see much growth at all until early spring . Then the developing leeks will pick up the stride and make firm growth , and you may be able to reap before the hottest weather of summer .
Sometimes leeks that have gotten started already in spring will almost terminate growing in summer , only to put on more growth in the fall ; then you may reap through wintertime . Be patient : Leeks can take six months or more to grow to full size of it .
Make certain that your leeks get pot of even water . Blanch the stalks by mounding turd around them as they grow . examine pulling an empty toilet paper tubing around each one as a collar to keep them cleaner as you mound the dirt . Mulch with a duncical layer of husk in wintertime .
3 Ways To Start Seeds
Unlike some members of theallium family — which includes onions , leek , garlic , multiplier onion , cive and Allium tricoccum — leeks grow readily from seed . The germination charge per unit can near 100 percent .
Leek seeds are available from most ejaculate companies , with packets containing from 50 to more than 300 semen . Varieties include King Richard , American Flag ( also called Broad London ) , King Sieg , the intercrossed Megaton and Giant Musselburg . Some gardeners believe Giant Musselburg , which originated in Scotland , to be the toughest and most moth-eaten - hardy variety , as well as give rise some of the expectant scallion .
There are several ways to get leek seeds started . The first is to implant each semen in a separate little peat tummy — the form that expands when water . Keep them moist , and when the plant are 3 to 4 inches magniloquent , transplantthem 4 to 6 inches apart into out-of-door beds .
you’re able to engraft leek semen directly in the soil , as well — again , 4 - 6 inches apart . institute them very shallow , just barely covering with soil .
The third method acting is to inseminate the seeds thick in the ground , where they will shape a lump . When the plants are 3 or 4 inch grandiloquent , toil up the clump , carefully separate the seedling , and replant far aside . Leeks tougher than they look .
As you move into fall , do n’t mourn the end of the growing time of year . When it make out to leeks and other cool - weather crops , your sentence in the garden has just begun .
