garden news-another christmas present

GARDEN NEWS-ANOTHER CHRISTMAS PRESENT

this is a delayed christmas present that arrived this week
earlier i received a box of onions right before christmas
its nice to get a present after christmas

these are leeks from dixondale farms in texas where the onions came from
they were shipped about 5 days ago and arrived this week


here is a leek that was some planted a year ago
it may have been a baby from that planting last year or it may have got seeded when the momma leek went to seed

if i could pick one plant that we put plant in the garden and it do well without problems
it would be a leek
you can almsot ignore it and it does well

in texas i never grew leeks since we didnt use them
in our community garden we donate most of ours to the organic soup kitchen linked here
read their story

when i was sick 3 years ago after i had what i think was covid i thought i would starve to death
one thing that saved me was their nutrition laden soups that i ate every day for months
for awhile it was all i could tolerate

what i noticed on the ingredients were a lot of seasonings with herbs and veggies and high nutrition veggies and lots of calories via olive oil and coconut oil
these soups were originally made for cancer patients that needed the extra nutrition in a media they could tolerate

one ingredient in all of these was leeks

so i started putting them in my soups and beans and stews
it adds nutrition and flavor

so i also started to grow them in my garden


in my garden i have beds that are 3ft x 7ft with a wooden border around them
i recently redid my beds digging down about a foot and added gopher wire then layered soil mulch unfinished compost good garden soil and compost
i did that in layers until i filled up the bed
then
i added a 4 inch layer of compost plus a good organic fertilizer
then
i watered in a fish emulsion seaweed molasses mixture 
then 
i covered it with pine straw for a couple of months until my later christmas present arrived
ie my leeks

i use pine straw since it keeps moisture in the soil and it is loosely packed so water can easily pass through and since its acid and breaks down in to the soil and since pill bugs dont like it
its also free

the leeks were planted 6 inches apart
i planted a total of 65 in this bed 
these are for my personal use

when they are harvested next april or may i cut up the white stalk part and freeze them for use in my cooking
the green part i compost


in our main garden we have this 30 foot by 3 ft bed that we prepped a month ago
we added 4 inches of compost plus organic fertilizer then we broadforked the bed
then
we raked out the bed and covered it with a bed of straw

when we were ready to plant we raked off the straw
we used the stake laying across the bed in the picture with makings every 6 inches
this was used as a guide to plant the leeks
the rake laying along the middle of the bed was used to poke the holes in the ground to plant the leeks

since you want a long white stalk we planted the leeks so just the green tops were showing

we planted approximately 200 leeks in this bed
today we will plant another 150 more leeks in other beds
they will be ready for harvest sometime in april maybe march
we start harvesting every other one as soon as they get big enough to use

the good thing about leeks is they have a long harvest time
they are fairly free of disease and just need watering and some monthly fish emulsion

now i wish tomatoes and squash and other summer crops were this easy to plant and care for

so if you have a bowl of organic soup kitchen soup starting in the late spring into the summer and you notice that leek flavor
well thats our organically grown leeks

what a nice late holiday christmas present

the organicgreen doctor