Meet the Onion Family – Growing Leeks

If you want a vegetable that will add a lot of flavor to your dishes, you may want to consider growing leeks. This is one plant that will truly add that extra zing to your cooking with its succulent stems. Although it is from the onion family, it has a small bulb and long stems, while onions are better used as bulbs.

It takes about 120 days to 170 days for this type of vegetable to fully mature. However, if they stay in the ground longer than their maturity stage, they end up getting less crisp and less flavorful. The most flavorful time to harvest and collect them is when their stems are one to two inches long and when their leaves are between six to eight inches in length.

Springtime is the best time to grow leeks because the weather is not too warm yet. Pick a bed that has lots of compost and plant the seed half and inch into the ground. The spacing between plants should at least be six inches. Be sure that the pH level is adequate, ranging between 6 and 6.8. Germination often happens after 14 days. If you have picked seedlings to transplant, then plant them at least three inches deep.

Having your vegetable bed under the full sun to enjoy the warm weather is preferred. If it is still winter, you may want to start growing these plants on trays and place them indoors before they are ready to transplant in the springtime. Weeding the vegetable bed is important to keep your plants healthy, just make sure you do not erroneously pull up the seedlings instead. This is why planting them in the bed in an evenly spaced manner can help you tell the difference.

If the soil ever gets dry when you touch it, you can water them accordingly, but do not make the soil soggy. If there are any days that the air gets cold, you may want to consider covering the bed of leeks with mulch to keep them warm. You can put sand mulch under and around the leaf junction of the plant.

If you have a large bed, you can actually plant other vegetables in the same bed with the leeks. Some companion plants that you can grow in the same bed are onions, celery, garlic, or even carrots.

A good tip when harvesting these vegetables is to harvest and then place the roots in cold water. This cold water will help stop the plant from maturing, which will also keep in the lovely flavor that you need for cooking. It’s always best to harvest fresh from the garden just before cooking. However, if you harvest your leeks early, you can put them in a sealed bag and store them in the refrigerator for a maximum of two weeks.

When growing leeks, you don’t need a special ‘green thumb’ to get good results. Following these simple instructions can help you have your own little vegetable garden, with healthy vegetables, to use for your own delicious cooking.

Finally, to learn even more on how to grow leeks and growing leeks, check out these related articles.

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