Veg4Show

Over the easter bank holiday I've lifted the collars on my leeks by turning the collar around and they are looking really good. Here you can see the pendle leek bared down, you will notice the flaw in this strain of leek and that is it tends to shaft being slightly thinner at the bottom than the top. This is just the characteristics of this strain of leek which can only improve through reselection over the years, such as the pendle improved leek that medwyns is growing this year. The welsh seedling have gone through the same processes over the years and through reselection the bulb on the bottom of the leek has disappeared.
(click picture for large view)

Well i finally managed to pot my leeks up this weekend into there final 5 litre pots and i have to say they had a very nice root structure, infact could have been repotted a few weeks earlier. It is important that you don't let your leeks or onions especially get to pot bound as at this stage they are really running low on nutrients in the soil based compost they are in. If you find you don't have time to pot something up that needs it then feeding is required at least once a week.

Now the leeks are in there final pots it wont be long before they fill these and at this stage they will be perfect to plant out. If i were planting these inside the polytunnel they would go in easter weekend and would have been potted up 3 weeks before this so the roots have a chance to fill the pot. This is why i potted them up slightly later this year as i want to hold on to them a bit longer until we get the warmer weather to plant direct outside in the raised beds.

You will notice i have slightly pulled the collar up the leek at the base and this purely for air circulation to avoid any rot. Now is also the time to ensure that the leaves are growing in the correct way so i still lightly support them but encourage them to lay down or the leaves will twist and so will the leek.

I changed my mind last week and decided to collar my leeks. The reason being, they had grown out of the old method in girth so fast and i didn't have any bigger pipe lagging on me at the time. The leeks are really growing fast now and i need to pot these up this weekend into there final pots.

Pendle:


Welsh seedling:

It wont be long now before we can start to think about planting out. This year my leeks will be grown outside in my raised beds. I feel growing them in a polytunnel can be risky due to high levels of heat and the increase in pests. So this year will be a test to see how well they will get on outside.

Here are some pictures of my leeks with the collar off:

The Pendle leek:


The Welsh Seedling:


You cant really see it from these pictures but the welsh seedlings are quite a way behind in girth compared to the pendle leek but they are going up nice and i wont push them much more than this before i finally plant out. I have also been spraying my leeks with liquid derris to kill any nasties which we have had quite a few this year already. I also tend to spray my leeks with a weak solution of armillatox to helps to prevent thrip damage.