leeks, Allium ampeloprasum var. porrum at Sequim Rare Plants

Olympic   Coast  Garden
leeks, Allium ampeloprasum var. porrum

Allium ampeloprasum var. porrum, leeks

This photo was taken Christmas Day 2009. The plants were dug from the vegetable garden in the morning and four of them were cooked for the mid-afternoon meal. The temperature dropped to 24°F (-4°C) the night before, so there was a thin crust of frozen soil over the garden. It was easy to break through. As you know, it is the white part of the plant that is eaten, having a mild flavor.

For next season's leeks, the seeds will be sown in the greenhouse within the next month. When early April arrives, they will be about half the thickness of a pencil, and will be planted in rows within the garden. If you haven't grown them before, you should give them a try, especially because they are a bit expensive to buy. We don't consider them difficult to grow although you would need to do some extra work to have them develop their long white, blanched necks that are so delicately flavored.

We plant them at the botton of a long shallow trench, about eight inches deeper than the surrounding soil. The trench makes it very easy to water the row, by simply flooding it slowly with water. As the leeks grow throughout the summer, we gradually fill the trench back in. So that by the end of summer there is no sign of any trench -- all that is visible are the large green tops of the plants. The buried part of the leaves will be about eight inches long, and will be growing thicker as the plant grows larger. Since the buried part is receiving no light, it remains a pure white.