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I planted my leek seeds in a seed tray on the 26th Feb.   I left them outside in my cold frame for ages and then started to leave out after the weather started to warm a little....

Anyway, they are about 6 inch high but still really thin...is this normal?  I thought they should be pencil thickness before i plant them out but i'm sure i planted them out this time last year...any advice?

sounds about right - I plant mine out as and when they are crowding the trays they have been sown in and this means they are quite thin - no problem  :)

I have never achieved "pencil thickness" before planting them out but I do end up with a really good crop.

yep, mine are like grass. this is normal, they have all summer to grow!

I always wondered about this!

The ones you can buy from the garden centres are pencil thickness..........how do they manage this?????

Should I sow them in November to give them longer to grow before transplanting.

This is the one question I really want answered!

Please help us  ;)

Is it ok to plant my thin leeks out now?

It's no use getting impatient with leeks, they take their time and the strongest growth comes in the cooler autumn months. Here's how I do mine.

Seeds sown in a standard 3 and a bit pot.


Seedlings transplanted to recycled polystyrene boxes.


Transplants moved to nursery rows outside to grow on till there is space available for them to be moved to their final positions.

I always transplant mine before planting out in their final position. When they get to "longish grassy" state I dib holes in a deep polystyrene container, and pop them into those. When they've grown on a bit I dib holes in the ground with an old cricket stump and in they go.  Never had any problems, except last year which was a disaster for our leeks, onions and garlic. The other hazard is birds - they like to pull them out of the holes.  >:( >:( >:( >:( >:( >:(

gosh OK, I was thinking that mine were done for! They seem so slow!! They are at the stage of the second picture there fron eristic. Well maybe I should net off a patch in the garden (just so they don't get pulled up by birds) and just put them straight into the soil now. They are quite tall (at least 25 cm!) but not very thick!

slightly different approach, as we do not have a greenhouse or polytunnel.

Sow outdoors in mid-Feb, albeit under a plastic cloche. Cloche was removed about 3 weeks ago. They are similar in size to Eristic's second picture, possibly slightly smaller.

We thin them out as required.

Normally we do not transplant them until mid-June, by which time they are pencil thick.

As Eristic says, they do most of their growing in the Autumn ... and we do not start eating them until November ... so no rush.

I'll be putting mine into a nursery bed as soon as I've got space, and they're a decent size. They only need to be an inch or so apart. Once they're big enough to go into decent holes with a bit sticking out at the top, and again I've got space, they go into the permanent positions.