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Leeks

carla_mm_carvalhocarla_mm_carvalho Posts: 9
in Fruit & veg
Planted my leeks last October, they’re surviving but very small, any tips on how to help them grow or just need to wait for warmer weather? Thanks!
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  • tui34tui34 Posts: 3,493
    Hello @carla_mm_carvalho  They'll grow throughout summer and will be ready in end/Summer/ Autumn/Winter.  It never does what it says on the label!!   Any member of the onion family take ages in the ground.
    A good hoeing is worth two waterings.

  • nick615nick615 Posts: 1,487
    Seem strange to plant in October?  Are they a special variety?
  • carla_mm_carvalhocarla_mm_carvalho Posts: 9
    nick615 said:
    Seem strange to plant in October?  Are they a special variety?
    Not that I know of! I went to my local farm last fall and asked if there was anything worth planting at the time and they told me they were just planting leeks to grow over winter, so I bought some seedlings just to give it a try! I just walked by the farm this weekend and noticed theirs leeks are huge compared to mine ahah hence my question 😊
  • nick615nick615 Posts: 1,487
    Sometimes commercial growers find seed we mortals can't, and they also tend to force their crops with super fertilisers to produce huge veg.  A local man rented a field just up the road from us to grow his veg for the local market.  Huge quantities of giant carrots etc. BUT he then had to surrender the field to leave it to grass and recover.  It was also the basic reason he took the field in the first place.  He'd leached all the goodness out of his own.  Depending on where you are, I'd suggest you buy something fairly standard like Musselburgh which will probably tell you to plant them in March, again depending on where you live.  Plant the seed in deepish trays and, once the seedlings are about 12 inches/30cm tall, dib similar depth holes in your ground where you want them to grow on, drop in a few chicken manure pellets followed by the seedling and water well.
  • delskidelski Posts: 274
    tuikowhai34 said:
    It never does what it says on the label!!   Any member of the onion family take ages in the ground.
    Tell me about it. I sowed spring onion seeds last summer and they're still in the ground and not anywhere near as thick as the ones in the shops.
  • NollieNollie Posts: 7,529
    Yes, Carla, just time and warmer weather. Did you sow them yourself? If you bought a bundle of young plants, sometimes they are a bit smaller than that, but I’ve found they pick up anyway. @nick615 leeks can be planted out in Autumn in warmer climes for an earlier crop. Carla said ‘fall’ rather than ‘autumn’ I’m guessing might not live in the UK? The US, I believe, differentiate between spring and autumn varieties. One year my seeds failed due to very erratic weather, so I bought a bunch of plantlets, but they were just labelled ‘leeks’. They’re not big on naming varieties over here!
    Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
  • carla_mm_carvalhocarla_mm_carvalho Posts: 9
    Nollie said:
    Yes, Carla, just time and warmer weather. Did you sow them yourself? If you bought a bundle of young plants, sometimes they are a bit smaller than that, but I’ve found they pick up anyway. @nick615 leeks can be planted out in Autumn in warmer climes for an earlier crop. Carla said ‘fall’ rather than ‘autumn’ I’m guessing might not live in the UK? The US, I believe, differentiate between spring and autumn varieties. One year my seeds failed due to very erratic weather, so I bought a bunch of plantlets, but they were just labelled ‘leeks’. They’re not big on naming varieties over here!
    Hi Nollie! Ahah I do live in the UK but my first language is not English so I jump between American and British English quite a lot, sorry for the confusion! I have no idea what variety I bought, I didn’t sow them I bought the plantlets but they were definitely not as big as @nick615 mentioned! 
  • nick615nick615 Posts: 1,487
    Good.  That's cleared the lines a bit.  By waiting until the seedlings are around 30cm, or a foot, tall, you can drop them into a suitable hole while leaving an inch or so above ground level.  This encourages them to carry on growing upwards, while leaving a good long section below ground to form the white bit for eating.  So, having spent most of my life in Mid Sussex, now in SW Ireland, March sowing has been the norm for me but it may be different elsewhere.
  • floraliesfloralies Posts: 2,718
    My neighbour gave me a bundle of young plants in early Autumn, the ground was still very hard from lack of rain. I ran the hose on it for a while and then used a dibber to make the holes and put them in watering profusely afterwards and what seems like forever until they were established. They will never be as long as the shop bought ones but they are ready for digging now, have had a couple and they are very tasty!
  • NollieNollie Posts: 7,529
    edited February 2021
    Yes that explains it! My language is all over the place too. Native English, learnt Castilian Spanish in the south of Spain, now having to contend with Catalan, which is very different and really difficult to pronounce. Well if your local farmer was planting them in autumn I assume it’s possible in (milder?) parts of the UK. Perhaps his were bigger when he planted them out though? Good luck anyway, you can only try!
    Mountainous Northern Catalunya, Spain. Hot summers, cold winters.
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