Tag Archives: Leeks

Another Year Begins

Last year I missed the leeks at the garden center so I decided to seed some leeks rather than try to buy some starts. I used one of those plastic salad containers that you get greens in. They have a lid and are about 6″x8″ and about 4-6″ deep. I’ll kept them in front of the sliding glass door where they will get bright but indirect light for the most part until they sprout.

January has been a dark, cold and wet month. Today was my first trip to the garden this year. No real work today, still recovering from surgery in late Dec., this was an ‘OMG I have to get out of the house lets go to the garden’ trip.

The garlic is up about 4-6 inches and looks good considering. I ended up losing all but a couple of the green onions and half of the shallots which was disappointing. The Egyptian Walkers seem to have made it though.

There are 4 or 5 Russian kale plants from last fall that seem to be doing well. We found clubroot not far from where they are planted so how they will do remains to be seen. A couple of the curly leaved variety are laying over and not looking very well. I’ll probably end up removing them during my first real work trip.

I seeded some greens last fall that didn’t end up making a showing but are up now. I’ll have to look back at what they were.

I ended up pulling the overwintered carrots. Very chewed up with root maggot I suppose. I think carrots are one of those ‘more trouble than they are worth’ here. I suppose I could cover them but it never seems to happen.

The horseradish I planted in the sunken clay pot is poking up. Darn, I had hoped to get it dug before it started growing again. I pulled the pot to take it home to deal with later.

All in all it was a great trip. If nothing else a learning experience. It was nice to get in the fresh air and get my hands dirty if only for a little bit.

Are leeks supposed to wriggle?

Before tilling in all the leaves I harvested the rest of the Leeks I had planted this spring. Much to my disappointment (and disgust) they were infested with what appeared to be onion maggots. A small fly lays its eggs at the base of the plant and when you harvest instead of seeing roots you see a wriggling mass. Needless to say we didn’t eat any of this last harvest. I need to do some research on this pest. I have only grown onions one other year and didn’t have a problem with the maggots then or on the crop of multipliers I grew this spring. Perhaps they prefer leeks? I’ve got all winter to determine what, if anything I will need to do next year for next year’s onions. Anybody know any organic controls for this one?