Sunday 12 June 2016

Planting Leeks

Traditionally, Leeks get planted out when they have reached "pencil size", but I have planted some of mine while they are still smaller than that (they seem to be taking an age to bulk-up). The reason for this is that they are going in between rows of Parsnips, and I'm worried that the Parsnip foliage will shade them too much before they have a chance to get established. Look, these are quite decent seedlings, even if they're not as fat as a pencil. They certainly have nice strong roots.



Fortunately, I remembered that I have a really efficient dibber, which is perfect for planting Leeks. Last year I forgot that I had this one, and used a different approach. The sharp metal point penetrates the soil very easily, and the long wooden shaft makes a nice deep hole for the seedlings to go into. Leeks are typically planted pretty deeply in order to produce long white shanks, which are more tender than the grey/green leaves.



Here's a photo of a Leek seedling standing in its new home. You just drop the seedling into the hole and then water it in. You don't even need to backfill with soil, because the act of watering will wash soil into the hole and cover the roots.



So now I have a row of 14 Leeks between two rows of Parsnips. I'll do another row of Leeks whenever I have some more that look big enough - hopefully within the next 10 days or so.




The Leeks I planted here are "Toledo" ones, and the ones waiting in the wings are "Apollo" and "Winter Giant".

9 comments:

  1. I agree, those are good looking leek plants. I would be happy to plant those. And your dibber looks like just the thing. I used a piece of bamboo this year but will have to put a dibber on my Christmas list for Santa.

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    1. The dibber is part of a comprehensive set of tools won for me by my lovely wife!

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  2. My leeks were quite a bit smaller than that when I transplanted them, just like the onions. But they are starting to size up now, so I'm optimistic.

    That looks like a great dibber - like Dave, I don't have one but it's on the wish list.

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  3. We have leeks to plant soon, hopefully before the soil dries as it is difficult creating the holes in dry soil. We plant out at about the same size as yours.

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    1. Yeah, that's why the metal-tipped dibber is so good!

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  4. I've also got a dibber on the wish list - at the moment I use a pencil or sharp stick!

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  5. They look like a very healthy set of plants.

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  6. I have never thought of rowing leeks in between parsnips. Do you do this ever year?
    PS I use an old bromhandle as a dibber but yours beats that hands down!

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    1. Nope, never done this before - but to be fair I'm still in the experimental phase as far as Leeks go - and I try to squeeze in as much as I can in my limited space.

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