I am starting off sprout and leek seedlings but I don't know where I will be able to put them once I transplant. I have a few choices available, which sounds like the best place (because I am trying to crop rotate but it is not always 100% possible):
Next to the root veg (carrot, parsnip, beet, fennel)
or
Next to the tomatoes
or
In the place where some early potatoes have been.
Any suggestions?
Productive allotments are usually cropped far more intensively than farmland and while crop rotation should continue where practical, it is less important than efficient use of the space available. Tomatoes will be finished by October, potatoes between June and October depending on type and while leeks would be happy in their company, you do not really want them sitting there stopping the bed from being dug over and re-planted.
I suggest that the leeks are planted near the parsnips then your winter maturing vegetables will remain close together leaving the other beds empty ready for winter preparation.
I put mine where the new potatoes were, and with a little blood,fish and bone they were fine.
Also I pulled all the young leek plants up from their nursery bed when I came to plant it with something else (was it sweetcorn?) and lumped them all together in a bunch in a spare corner. Then I planted them as space became available, moving them twice didn't seem to do them any harm.
.... and very nice they were too ;)
Jon
Ooh that's an idea now. I wonder if they could go where the garlic and onions have been? Or is that too much of the same stuff?
That would be OK but you would have to use a general fertiliser as they are taking the same nutrients out and then give it a good rest ... no alliums for a couple of years or you might build up something like white rot... many of our plots have it where onions were the main crop grown year after year on the same soil...
::)
Here's mine patiently waiting in a home-made box recycled from a greengrocers transport case.
(http://www.david-frary.com/images/leek_seedlings.jpg)
Gosh !Eristic ! Yours are so much more advanced than mine. :o Mine are mere whiskers still . Maybe I should give them a feed or something ?
Rohaise
I always plant mine where the early potatoes have been too, but that's more to do with what space is available than anything scientific about who gives what to the soil.