Leeks - Musselburgh

As a general rule all veg want to be in full sun ...

 

Thanks for that. I would've dibbered them in deeper if they were long enough but because I stunted them from growing them in a seed tray for too long I couldn't get that deep. I think I'll transfer them to pots a lot sooner or start them in pots. I don't think I have a lot of long pots though. The newspaper method looks okay, need to look into that more.

 

I would start them in a bigger, deeper, tray and not faff about with pots. Much easier to get the watering right in a larger container. Then transplant them on end June / early July as normal.

My seedlings, after the evenly spaced seed has germinated


Growing on:



Tipped out for planting:


Individual Leek plants separated out (by shaking bunches of them in a bucket of water), and the "Pencil Thickness Test":

 

What's the depth you've got in the tray there?

 

4" or 5" at a guess. Box is probably 5" deep with 4" compost in it. You can probably get a polystyrene box like that from a fish monger. I've had, and reused, mine for years - the mice had a go at it, in storage, one winter so perhaps I should treat myself to a new one!

 

For those who don't have the time or space to grow leek plants in seed trays/boxes etc., there is another way. Here are some of my Musselburgh leeks, lifted today, which I grew the old fashioned way.

I simply sowed the seed direct outdoors around mid April, as soon as the soil began to warm up. The plants were then transplanted when they reached about pencil thickness, around early to mid July, into their permanent site.

After that, I just kept them weed free and well watered during dry spells and I've been harvesting decent sized leeks for the past month now.
(Note. Size 10 foot deliberately included for scale!)

 

Aye, not bad them at all. Hmm...so start them in a nursery bed, any trouble with pests etc?

 

It seems to depend on the soil type.

I long ago gave up trying to grow leeks in the garden at home. We have sandy, very free draining slightly acidic soil here; whenever I've tried leeks they've succumbed to either white rot or leek moth larvae (or both).

The leeks in the photo were grown in our vegetable plot at work. This has a different soil type, it's a slightly chalky clay-loam, which is far more moisture retentive. I've grown leeks there for the past six years now with no pest or disease problems so far.

 

Sounds familiar, I have clay-loam too and didn't have a single thing wrong with them. Nursery beds always sound risky to me. Outside facing the elements, pests, diseases etc.

 

I'm fairly sure that growing them in shade increases the chance of them getting rust (same with garlic).

 

Opinions vary of course, that's the spice of life , but mine is that isn't an issue of time & space. I'll explain my thoughts in case of interest to anyone:

Sowing direct outdoors appears to be less faff to most people, but I think it bears comparison:

Sowing Leeks indoors:

Needs a suitable, reusable, "Fish Box" and some multi purpose compost.

Sowing the seed is fiddly (positioning each one carefully so it has room to develop), but that avoids a pricking-out / thinning step.

Upside is that the sowing can be done at any time. After dark (Spouse permitting use of kitchen table!!) and regardless of the weather. For a busy person I think this is important.

Ideally the seeds will be given some warmth to kickstart germination, but putting the tray in greenhouse / coldframe will then be similar to "outdoors"

Thereafter there is a need to water the tray regularly

If the tray is in a greenhouse it will come on faster than the outdoors ones, although important that they don't get too hot as if stressed they may then bolt.

Compare that to direct sowing:

Requires time available for sowing when the weather is right. Cold / Wet weather can significantly delay that.

Seedbed needs to be prepared - hoe to remove weeds / incorporate fertiliser perhaps, and then rake to a tilth. On my heavy clay soil it would be a minor miracle if I could do that much before the end of April, some years it is May before I am ready. On Sandy soil it would probably be possible 364 days of the year

Once the seeds are sown they start to germinate. They are going to do that in a race with the weed seeds, also starting at the same time. The impact of this, I think, depends on how much weed seed you have in your plot - plots that have been well tended for many years may have negligible amounts - and how much time you have available for weeding. But timely weeding will be important, and it is important to have time available when weeding is needed and weather is suitable. (Comes back to whether folk have time available, or are rarely at home in Daylight in Spring)

If you sow the seed too thick you will have to thin them.

Sowing outdoors the chances are good that you will not have to water them, if you do it will be less than for the container raised plants. However, there is a risk that cold / wet weather may reduce germination percentage significantly (depends a bit on the crop ... and how heavy your soil is), and if you have to re-sow as a consequence it will be a month before you get the chance to make that decision, and then your replacement crop will be really late :( For a crop like Parsnips, slow to germinate at the best of times, the time that you discover the crop is not coming up its getting too late to re-sow

You will use more seed if sowing outside than indoors (indoors you can sow seed for the exact number of plants you need plus, say, 10% - 20% for "spares"). Thus you are likely to spend more money on seed for outdoor sowing. This is probably not hugely significant, as a packet of Musselburgh Leeks will probably be enough for a couple of years, and the seed is probably only viable for about that long anyway. However, if you try some F1 leek varieties, say 50 seeds to a packet, then sowing in a container is likely to give better germination / use less seed, so you will either use less packets, or have some left over for next year. And F1 ain't cheap ... :( so there is potential a tangible saving.

Leeks are transplanted into final position anyway, so whichever route you start off you get to the same point at transplanting, but for other things, which can be sown & grown in-situ, I think there is an additional gain. Take Lettuce for example:

Outdoors draw a drill and sow the seed. You have the issue of weed seeds starting off at the same time, so you are likely to need to weed, and probably to thin too (although for some things, like Beetroot, unless you sow way too thickly you should be able to pull the small ones and use in the kitchen, leaving the others more room to fatten up)

Indoors method I use is to work out how many lettuce we use in a fortnight, and then I start off that number of plants each fortnight. A couple of seeds in a 9cm pot. (For Beetroot I start off a batch of seed in a small seed tray and then prick-out 3 per 9cm pot, two of those will be pulled for thinnings some time after planting out).

I then plant out the pots when they are ready. This gives me probably 6 weeks (from sowing to planting) to allow the ground to warm up, and to get it cultivated. For me, on heavy soil, this is the difference between needing the soil to be ready in March to some time around the end of April being time enough. After planting out the plants have a huge (6 weeks ) lead time on the germinating weed seeds, so weeding is a doddle and there is no urgency to do it as the emerging weeds will not compete with the plants for some weeks.

Sowing indoors also helps with succession sowing. A "row" of Lettuces is likely to be too many, all at once (unless you freeze/process excess produce), whereas sowing indoors I start off, each fortnight, the number of plants that previous experience tells me we need. No neat rows in my gardens, just blocks of plants representing each fortnightly batch, through the growing season.

 

Thanks for that Kristen, indoors for me it is then.