First of the season...
Using drainpipe lengths to increase the length of white shank...
(http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e190/Plot52/Leeks.jpg)
quite noticable, the one problem is they have grown so well this Autumn that we are struggling to get some out of the tube!
;D
Nice bit of fodder there! Ours started well then slowed up.
one of my favourites, they look great - we've been eating ours for awhile now as I tend to grow an early variety, maincrop and a late one as well, so we can eat them right up until spring - such a versatile veg and the best in 'fast food' :)
does it work as well with paper collars, ours have grown really well in the leaf mould/grass bed but the soil's a bit soft to earth them up, been importing15 year old rotted horse muck and earthing up with that, really need cleaning before eating ;D
I've just been naughty and bought some more Leek seed, a 'blue' leaved variety from Real Seeds co; should be interesting! there always room for a few mre seeds........ ;D
oooo, glad you showed that saddad as I have plenty of drainpipe and wondered if I could use it like that! I have been 'earthing' up with shredding paper and straw as I planted mine all close together so no room to earth up. I shall take my saw with me next week when I go.
I was also wondering about loo roll tubes as I saved about 2 dozen for this purpose, but then had second thoughts wondering if they would go mouldy and rot the leeks. Anyone had any success using cardboard tubes?
Those are Musselburgh Deb... I have bought some Mammoth from Robinsons, shall we trade a few at pricking out stage!
::)
Boring to repeat, I know, but WHY do all this, unless you're going for exhibition. And how many of you have time for that?
What's wrong with a deep dib??
Wish we had room for succession - the rot & all that.
I just dib a hole and drop them in. When I'm preparing them, I slice the white bit, then take the coarse outer leaf off and slice the tender inside. Lovely!
I just dib a hole and drop them in. When I'm preparing them, I slice the white bit, then take the coarse outer leaf off and slice the tender inside. Lovely!
Same here. Also, they are great like that with a little ginger too!
Mmn! Obviously, not sure how to put that quote in a little box >:(
Answers please?
Oh I dib dib dib as deep deep deep as I can so that just the little tops are poking out of the ground, but as I can't earth them up to blanch the stem due to the close planting, I thought the loo roll tubes would be worth a spin. Mine do have about 20 to 30cm of white stem, and I do use the green, but I just thought, why not, nothing to loose by making them longer.
EJ - loo roll tubes work fine (the tubes rot by summer but not the leeks) but they dont increase blanche length by much :-\
Pringle tubes however do increase the blanche length and due to the foil lining can be reused each year (well 3 so far) 8)
But its only cosmetic - the green part is just as tasty ! ;D
Oh, dear, not another excuse for the children to buy Pringles??
At the start of this thread I thought..."Oh no I didn't know you were supposed to earth them up!" By reading through Tim came to the rescue. Now feel I have done alright although I wonder if I could have dibbed a bit farther ?
Depends upon your soil?
The books say 5" - we do 12"!!
I never earth up or go to the trouble of 'tubing' them in any way and always get long leeks - this can be helped by selecting the best varieties as there are short ones and long ones :)
Last year I put some loo roll tubes round mine - but they very soon got wet and most of them unravelled. On the ones that survived (tubes that is) as Dadnlad says it increased the white - but not much. This year I dibbed deeper - and earlier I think but am not much of a record keeper - and am delighted with the results.
This was my first year with leeks. I grew them in a large grow box in my balcony. 10 Musselborough. They were great. The leaves got really long and a few grew really thick. I will try these again next year on the allotment now that I have one!
And thanks to Tim I'm also delighted to hear I didn't do anything wrong. :D
Calendula has a point there?
Despite a 12" dib, I don't get 12" of white with some types.
12" Tim!!!
I dibbed about 30 leeks or maybe less - felt like 300, my hands were soooo blistered and swollen for a week after the ordeal! And i only managed to dib a few to 5" but most were 3" and some even 2"... after that i gave up and just planted the rest in a tiny bit of a hole!
Next year i'll prepare the bed better i think but dibbing deep is the worst lottty job i can think of!
Had you thought of getting a long dibber you can use standing up? It might make it easier. They're always turning up on eBay, and I have seen the odd one with a sidebar so you can use foot pressure.
Or you could use a spade, slide it in, move it to make a slit and drop your leeks down the hole. Not perfect, nor ideal, but it works for me when I am in a hurry!
Pringle tubes? How deep do you put them in the ground & with how much sticking out the top? Also do the leeks come out ok or do many get stuck?
I've starting using my leeks now didn't get much white really but as a first timer not bad I don't think really, (at least they grew). I know for next year to plant deeper this year I was a bit afraid they would dissappear.
Is there a leek variety that you can sow now for next year or early next year?
leeks generally come in early, maincrop and late varieties and you wouldn't normally be sowing until next spring - some of the earliest varieties include hannibal, prizetaker, tropita - if you like a lot of white then avoid the stumpy varieties
Quote from: EJ - Emma Jane on November 11, 2006, 14:33:15
Or you could use a spade, slide it in, move it to make a slit and drop your leeks down the hole. Not perfect, nor ideal, but it works for me when I am in a hurry!
yep, tried the dib-a-hole method against the throw-in-furrow method this year - can't tell the differerce now! ::)
Olive oil,
You need help from that pipe sucking thingie bloke!
Just push the bl**dy jobbie in the ground a bit deeper forchriesake!!
Sorry to go slightly off topic here, but do lift all your leeks before the bad winter weather, or do they just sit there like parsnips? If you harvest them all, how do you store them ?
Leave them in place, they're as hard as nails
They're that hardy, sometimes they're the only thing left to eat when the weather's really rough.
Did the loo + kitchen rolls earlier on this year, just when it was really wet down here. They lasted 8 days before they unraveled and blew all over the plot, so I got some plastic piping and stuck over some. I had dibbed them in to start with, so am monitoring the differences between the piped and non-piped for rot etc and the end white length. Will let you know the results. Pringle pots sound a good one, esp. since the kids go through soooo many at Christmas, only I would worry that the leeks might not fill them and light would come in to have a negative effect. ???
I found tubes to make an excellent home for the local slug population
What's wrong with green leeks anyway?
Nothing once you take the outer leaf off. If you just eat the white bit you waste half the leek. My father had an allotment when I was a kid, and he never dibbed them in at all, so there was only about half an inch of white. They were perfectly good to eat.
QuoteNothing once you take the outer leaf off. If you just eat the white bit you waste half the leek.
Exactly
I chop, chop, chop, take a leaf off then start again until there's no more left but would like to take home the big one :o I plant sooo many anyway a few with slug hotels are worth it to see. Anyway I have the Wychwood's brewery's flagship in the slug pubs, Hobgoblin. Gleaned when he falls asleep with it on his lap ;D
You give Hobgoblin to your slugs :o Best mine get are Batemans slops. If I forget to take my pin to the pub, they have to put up with Tesco's finest four for 99p ;D
I find they actually prefer the cheaper beers... they put more aromatics in them so you don't mind drinking it... a cheap polypin like Trent bitter is getting harder to find...
8)
HELPPPPPPPPPP
I cant get my leeks out the ground... was gonna have some for dinner today but they are stuck.
Any tips?
are you using a fork or tugging?
if it's cos of the frosty ground, maybe time to make that trench thing a la barnsdale ;)
hope you get em up in time for tea OO ;D
Hardiness? SOME leeks are hardy - some are not.
Lifting? If they are deep in - as they should be - only a fork, as said, will get them out. Think carrots - any decent sized one has to be lifted rather than pulled?
I tried the fork this morning... i think i may need a better fork!
I stick the fork in next to the leek, lever gently, and pull. That way I get the leek out without unduly disturbing the soil.
or give them a good water first and they should just pull out.
with regards to planting i dib them in about 6-8" run a bit of water down the dibber before pulling it out to stop the hole caving in and drop the trimmed leeklet in take off half the root and a third the top before planting, then water in. when they have grown about 8 " usually give them a bit of nitrate feed in powder form and earth them up a bit usually get a good 8" of white on musselburgh, the ones that last that long, usually pick them pretty small nowadays.
Just by the way - how do they do it commercially?
and beauties they are too growmore :D
I third the deep hole method!
This year I took a broom handle, marked it at 12" and did loads of holes. Filled each one with water first.
You couldn't see the seedlings when they were in (I used a thin bamboo cane to push them into the mud) and then didn't water them again. I thought I'd overdone the depth, and yes I do have to be very careful with the fork, but it's worth it for these:
(http://www.moonbells.com/allotment/2006/November_06/041106_3.jpg)
The tape measure's a metric one with a red dot every 10cm. The variety is Autumn Mammoth Verina (a good one for organic growing). And they were drying upside down to stop dirty water going down the leaves!!!
I've had one bolt out of about 30 and haven't really watered them at all. Once at the start and once after a couple of weeks and that was it.
moonbells
I've grown some giant leeks (musselburgh) but they've got rust. Anybody else have rust? They're still edible they just don't look as nice :'(
Anyone know to to prevent it?
we've got rust , the amount of rain we've had, i feel a bit rusty myself, we were told just to take the worst leaves off and earth them up again :)
crop rotation is the best advice and don't grow leeks in that same spot for quite some time :)
Actually that was the first time they'd been grown there and it had been under grass for years before so i was a bit surprised.
We had the same leeks with a bit of rust problem as Kea - also grown where there had only been grass for some years. The ones in the raised bed nearby were fine. so Growmore's nitrogen/potash answer looks good (or is that bad) :)
I dib my holes with a five foot solid iron temporary fence spike - I also use it for breaking up large rocks in the soil when digging. I then wiggle it around a bit to make the hole wider and then put the leeks in using a short section of cane. I then water with a rose as I cannot be bothered to accurately water 100's of holes individually.
Having said that, mine were a disaster this year as I tried to to it no dig with carboard and that just curled up and starved them of light ::)