Tag Archive: leeks

Growing Leek Musselburgh From Seed For 2018

Chris April 27, 2018 Allotments, Cooking, Vegetables cooking, germination, leeks, Musselburgh, propagation, seeds, Tips

This morning I have sown the last of my leek seeds. They are Musselburgh bought from alanromans.com and can be relied upon for a top sweet flavour, winter hardiness and good all round performance. It is a variety with good disease resistance and an excellent flavour. This year I have gone for sowing the seeds individually in toilet roll tubes just eight at a time for staggered planting at the allotment. The seeds should germinate in about 21 days and will be left to grow on until they are about 8″ high and pencil thick. We shall plant them out in May leaving a gap of about 6″ between them and with rows about 1′ apart. We have grown this variety before and had varying results so fingers crossed for this year.

Tip – When planting Leeks, choose a well drained bed and apply a general fertiliser a week before. Water the bed the day before if the weather is dry. Make a 6″ hole with a dibber, drop in the leek plant whilst at the same time gently filling the hole with water to settle the roots. Do not backfill with soil at this point. Keep ground moist and earth up when the white base starts to show. NO MANURE.

Cooking with Leeks. Leeks are part of the onion family but have a sweeter, more delicate flavor. Leeks contain good amounts of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, making the vegetable a wise addition to a healthy diet. You can cook leeks by poaching them in chicken broth, pan-frying them in a little oil, or boiling them until tender or you can include them in a variety of other recipes. I use Leeks mainly in soups, stews and casseroles but they are equally useful as a side vegetable or in a pie.

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Swiss Chard

Chris March 26, 2017 Allotments, Garden, Vegetables chard, leeks

We went to the allotment today and did a bit more tidying up. I was pleased to see three good roots of Swiss Chard just waiting to be picked for dinner. We also brought home a couple of leeks just to check on the quality really as they had been growing over the winter. They were brilliant and are now cut up and in the freezer and we are planning to harvest the rest of the crop and clear the bed for new planting. I came home a bit more optimistic about keeping the allotment plot. I had a load of wood chip dropped and Rob has tidied a few beds and covered them with manure and woodchip giving the whole place a visual lift. We have also cleared the site of bits of plastic and empty bags that had been blown about after storm Doris. Back at home we put a bag of manure on the side garden plus two bags of wood chip. It is almost built up to the right level now another five bags should do it. Laura came home with a wooden raised bed knocked together by a friend of Bryans at his allotment site. We have painted it with green preservative and put it ready to be filled with soil and planted up.

Leek – Musselburgh

Chris April 16, 2011 Allotments, Vegetables leeks, seeds

I have sown a deep tray of Leek Musselburgh and put the tray into a polythene bags to preserve moisture and heat. I have grown this variety before with varying success which has more to do with the gardener than the variety. I shall grow them on until they look sturdy enough to plant out on the allotment. They will probably be put into the ground that the potatoes come out of where they will stay until early next year.

Transplanting Leeks

Chris June 18, 2010 Allotments, Vegetables leeks, Tips

Rob came and met me at the plot and we planted forty Leek plants. The long awaited rain came just as we were finishing. We use the popular method of planting Leeks which is just dibbing a good hole and dropping the plant in while pouring water in to settle the roots but not back filling with soil. We are fast running out of space and still have more leeks, onions, pumpkins and the Gardeners Delight tomatoes to plant.

Leek – Musselburgh

Chris March 5, 2009 Allotments, Vegetables leeks, Tips

This morning I have sown the last of my leek seeds in a tall 7″ pot. They are Musselburgh bought from alanromans.com and can be relied upon for a top sweet flavour, Winter hardiness and all round performance. They should germinate in about 21 days and will be left in the pot until they are about 8″ high. We shall plant them out in late April or May leaving a gap of about 6″ between them and with rows about 1′ apart. We have grown this variety before and had varying results so fingers crossed for this year.

Tip – When planting Leeks, choose a well drained bed and apply a general fertiliser a week before. Water the bed the day before if the weather is dry. Make a 6″ hole with a dibber, drop in the leek plant whilst at the same time gently filling the hole with water to settle the roots. Do not backfill with soil at this point. Keep ground moist and earth up when the white base starts to show.

Mission Impossible

Chris May 15, 2007 Allotments, Vegetables leeks, onions

We popped down to the plot this afternoon to see what could be done with the leeks and the onions. The leeks were well past help so we dug them up and threw them away. The onions looked worth saving so after cutting off the flower stems I bent them over at the neck and we have left them until we have a dry day. Everything else seemed to be holding its own against the torrential rain. Rob did some weeding in the fruit cage and the sweet corn bed while I watered in the lean to. I topped up the compost in the tomato pots and pinched out all the side shoots I could see. I brought a lettuce home for tea, more because I need the space than that it was fully grown. The one remaining courgette that we planted is looking very sickly so I topped up the compost in the raised bed and gave it a friend in the shape of a much sturdier specimen sown to replace the ones we lost. Let’s hope it will buck up its ideas now it has competition.

Although we were sure that last years Dahlias were all lost three green shoots have emerged and I plan to buy a few more plants from the garden centre to complete the row. In the bed next to them I planted a row of Limonium Sinuatum Statice which had been given to us by Trevor.

August 2006

Chris November 9, 2006 Allotments leeks

There were red berries all over the big tree at home and it has reminded me how quickly the growing year is flying past. The peas were a disaster so we dug them up, same with lettuce, we have a lot to learn. We have planted some late potatoes, Carlingford, Maris Peer and Charlotte. The shed went up on the 30th and we now feel that we have really moved in to our plot. Trevor is giving us more and more space and we are gradually making it ours. We planted 33 leek plants given to us by the brothers. Also sowed seeds for beetroot, carrots, swede and turnips.