Free merchant vessels on Holy Order Over $ 100 *
Customer Service|Privacy Policy
Enter your email to sign up for our newsletter and save 25% on your next order
see for a veggie to grow and harvest through winter?Try leeks !
With some careful preparation , a minute of elbow grease , and some insight from Eliot Coleman , you’ll enjoy Allium porrum from your garden all year long .
The following is an selection fromThe Winter Harvest HandbookbyEliot Coleman . It has been conform for the web .
What Are Leeks?
Leeks are almost a class - rhythm crop for us and would be all - class if the wintertime leeks did not sell out so speedily .
We get our first crop in May from transplant spare early seedling to a moth-eaten house . ( Seeds are sown February 15 in our flora - part greenhouse . ) Then we sell outdoor - grow summertime leeks through September and the declination leeks through November .
Leeks In Every Season
Winter leeks are usable from early December until we are sold out , usually in early March . We practice a different leek variety for each season .
The summer and fall leeks are harvest directly from the sphere with the additional protection of a sheet of credit card over the last of the twilight Allium porrum during the second half of November .
We protect the wintertime leeks with a movable glasshouse starting in other December . We add an inner layer from mid - December on until all the leeks are sold .
Cooking & Eating Leeks
The edible part of a leek is the white blanched stem . The more duration a blanched leek stem turn has , the better the merchandise .
blench can be accomplished by hilling grunge up against the stems of the scallion . However , in our experience , the key to growing scallion expeditiously and intensively is to acquire your own transplants and dibble them into deep planting cakehole .
By dibble in the transplant rather than experience to hill - up soil as the leeks grow , we are able-bodied to plant them more intensively — as nearly as three rows on a 30 - inch bed with the leeks 4 inches apart in the row .
Growing Leek Transplants
Unlike many of our other crops , we do n’t farm our leek transplants in grime block .
Instead , we farm them on the base in our plant - starting greenhouse in 30 - inch - wide-cut - by-8 - substructure - foresightful - by-3- inch - deep seedbeds with wooden side filled with pot soil .
We sow in leek seeds directly into these beds using the six - row seeder . We allow the seedlings to uprise in these beds until they are at least 10 inches tall .
We toil them out of the seedbed by loosening the pot filth under them with a trowel .
To set the young plants for transplant , we trim their roots to 1 column inch long and trim the top part to 10 inches long .
The Dibble Method
Our dibber is a 36 - inch - farsighted , 1 - in - diam dowel pin with the death tapered to a spatulate bakshish .
We sometimes attach a shovel hold to the upper oddment of the dowel pin and add a 6 - inch - diameter plate 9 inch above the crest .
In use , we push it into the land to the full 9 - in depthand then twist the handgrip so the spatulate tip drop out the bottom of a 9 - column inch - deep vasiform gob .
Make Sure the Soil is Moist
This is more successful if the soil is moist , as dry soil will run to crumple back into the hole when the dibble is remove . Thus , we water the aerofoil before transplanting when atmospheric condition are dry .
We make a hole every four inch along the quarrel and simply drop a leek transplantation vertically into each hole .
Starting Leek Plants
Once the seedling are in the holes , only an inch or so of light-green top sticks up above the land . Then we irrigate the field and let the Allium porrum arise .
We do n’t intentionally fill again the holes , but soil slowly migrates in every time we irrigate or naturalise .
The leek plants turn beautifully , each with a guaranteed nine inches of blanched stem . If you have never grow leeks this way before you may chance it hard to consider that it will play — but it does .
Baby Leeks
Our eating place customers love early baby scallion . These we farm in a cold greenhouse at five rowing to a 30 - inch seam , put them 3 in apart in the row .
At that spatial arrangement they can be cultivated with the long - handled wire weeder . Once when we had no other blank space , we planted single rows of leek between the sharpness bed and the wall of the greenhouse .
The dibble-and-drop method is the only way we could have done that.
Recommended Reads
Low Tunnel Tutorial : Winter grow DIY
The Search for A Welsh Leek
The Winter Harvest Handbook
Year Round Vegetable Production Using Deep - Organic Techniques and Unheated Greenhouses
$ 29.95
Recent Articles
Farming Against Nature
When you ’re walk around the grocery store looking at the vegetables , it ’s in all probability hard to imagine that a century ago there was twice the amount of options .
Types of Tomatoes: Deciphering the Many Varieties
If you love tomato , you probably already make out just how many varieties of these summertime staples there are . But do you know what makes each one unique ?
Embracing Sustainable Food Production: Integrating Trees and Crops
Adding the farsighted plot of trees to your system results in a deep and more reliable , live and profound presence to your one-year veggie production .
Foraging for Mushrooms: Gourmet Root Systems
For people who enjoy foraging for food in the state of nature , there are great deal of mushroom to choose from — “ ten thousand mushroom coinage to be regard on the North American continent alone ” . But foraging for mushroom should never be thought of as a secret plan of chance . You need to love all the clues when it comes to identify …
How to Create the Perfect Bee Hive: A Home Worth Buzzing About
For all the apiarist and future beekeepers out there , this one is for you ! Your journey to successful apiculture begin with manufacture a suitable seaport for honeybee , otherwise known as the bee hive . The comply is an excerpt from Raising Resilient Bees by Eric and Joy McEwen . It has been adapted for the vane . Bees …
© 2025 Rizzoli International Publications Inc. All Rights allow .
Rizzoli International Publications300 Park Avenue South , quaternary FloorNew York , NY 10010United States
There are items in your basket which are ready to ship.
You ’ll need to checkout before add this pre - order particular to your basket .
