Kitchen Garden Forum

A steady rain in the night, then a pleasantly warm day, does it for me...

True, there is an ideal scenario there.

The final measure of rain was 7mm, not to be snuffed at but we could do with a lot more.

It has rained down here all day! I am blessed as we got light drizzle overnight & most of today & phone says until late morning tomorrow. If we had a downfall this precious resource would have been wasted!

Well today's birthday user didn't last long did they!
Grumpy
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Joined:Wed Mar 29, 2017 1:58 pm Last active:Wed Mar 29, 2017 2:21 pm

Probably just as well, with a name like that.....

Just done one of those jobs that leave you feeling satisfied.....planted 120 leek plants.

OH
Last year we transplated about 60% of our leeks and let the rest stay where they started.
Results:- everything looked much the same in December, which surprised me.

My earliest gardening memory is of planting out leeks with my mother; she wielded the dibber and, to begin with, the little leeks, I was charged with filling the hole with water.
And I love leeks to eat.

Evening Stephen, strange how things sometimes work out....always a surprise around the corner.

I sow in deep rootrainers, line out in drills quite close together then transplant some in the traditional way of trimming them top and bottom and dropping them into dibbed holes. We use most for making leek and potato soup and, like Stephen, have found we use almost as many from the 'rejected' seedlings as the properly grown plants. I wonder if for soup it would be easier just to sow a long drill and grow them like large spring onions. Anybody tried it?

Interesting thought, Geoff, and since I have a few freebie packets of seed, I might try this next year.....The only slight down side might be, there might not be quite as much blanched shaft....but would that really matter!!!!!

Geoff wrote:I sow in deep rootrainers, line out in drills quite close together then transplant some in the traditional way of trimming them top and bottom and dropping them into dibbed holes. We use most for making leek and potato soup and, like Stephen, have found we use almost as many from the 'rejected' seedlings as the properly grown plants. I wonder if for soup it would be easier just to sow a long drill and grow them like large spring onions. Anybody tried it?

Got to be worth a try.

My late Father was a great Dahlia grower. Thought out of a bout of nostalgia I would grow some this year. First ones just started to bloom. Puzzled though, whats happened to the earwigs. My job as a boy was to erect the canes with a bit of hay/straw in small pots to capture the earwigs.

Their numbers seem to be down hugely in the last few years, Shallot Man......hardly had any in my Chrysanthemums, either!

Leeks and blanched shafts: you can probably get more blanched shaft with careful transplanting although my accidental experiment didn't show a substantial difference. For myself, I'm happy to have plenty of green but I do understand some don't.
I will also use the coarser tops and edges for soup and the lower parts of the shaft as a separate vegetable. The very best will be baked slowly, a lot gets sauted and I love leek and potato soup (I put quite a lot of rosemary in mine), so make that a lot.

I'm not really looking forward to working ovr the next three days, it's just going to be too hot......

Any shade in the gardens?