garden news-leeks

GARDEN NEWS-LEEKS 

now i have never grown leeks in my garden until now
why
i never used them in my cooking
however
when i was at my lowest weight and not tolerating much food i started eating the organic soup kitchen soups that were loaded with calories and nutrition
when i started looking at the around 20 different soup recipes they mostly had leeks in all of them

the leeks add flavor and nutrition to the soups
so
i started adding leeks to my beans and soups when i cooked them
you could taste the flavor of the leeks

when i was ordering my onions from dixondale farms in texas to plant here in santa barbara i noticed they sold leek plants also
the variety they sell are called lancelot 

what i did this fall and winter was to borrow some leeks from the garden here and i decided when i ordered my leeks i would donate a few to plant back in the community garden
these leeks will end up mostly in the organic soup kitchen soups
a full circle huh

the leeks sold in nurseries here are a different variety
they are sold in six packs of these spindly thin grass like plants that are hard to plant

the lancet leeks are large about 6-8 inches long and the size of a pencil

so here is the bundles as they came out of the box
each bundle has about 50 leeks in them

in the community garden i prepped a bed that is 30 ft long by forking the bed in with a garden fork that has tines about 1 foot long
i dont till or use a shovel since that chops up the soil and the worms
i fork across the bed every 4 inches
the beds are about 3 ft wide
also before forking i place about a 2 inch layer of compost that we make ourselves from shredded plant material from the garden mixed with vegetable material from the garden and a nearby food kitchen
when this compost is finished it makes a dark rich compost full of worms
after adding the compost i add a dusting of a good organic fertilizer

this is raked out into a nice raised bed that is 3 ft wide



i used a small limb and poke a hole about 6 inches deep
a leek was dropped into each hole
a solution of liquid fish emulsion plus seaweed plus molasses was used to water the new leek plants
then each leek hole was covered with soil so that only the top leaves peeked through


in this picture you can see the almost 130 leek plants planted in the row

they should be ready in late spring to start harvesting them
you can cut them off above the roots and they will regrow so you might get 2-3 harvestings 
planting them deep makes for a long white stalk on the leek

i also planted 20 in my garden for my personal use

so i paid it forward after borrowing leeks from the garden this year

we all should try paying things forward sometimes

just the good things though

the organicgreen doctor