The leaks that we are planting today are two different varieties.
One variety will be ready to harvest in the fall, the other one will be ready to harvest
over the winter.
It's a longer keeping variety.
We saved this space to plant our leaks.
We planned this out.
We knew we were going to be planting leaks here, so to keep the weeds from growing up
over the winter.
We covered the space with burlap.
And under the burlap we also had down some newspaper.
So I'll pull all of this stuff off and then we'll get the soil ready to plant.
Some basic organic transplant fertilizer.
The packages all tell you how much to use, so I've determined that we need about four
cups for this area.
A lot of people like to till their garden.
This soil is nice and loose.
We really don't need to till it.
We just need to break it up and incorporate this fertilizer in.
I'm just digging this little bit of newspaper in.
The shallots and garlic that we have planted on this end of the bed are not going to want
very much water once it gets close to the harvesting time, which will be towards the
end of July, depending on the weather.
So I want to leave a good space between the leaks, which are going to want a fair amount
of water during the summer while they're actively growing, so that we don't end up watering
the shallots while we're watering the leaks.
So once we're done, I will cover this area up right here with some burlap.
And then as soon as the leaks are harvested, we'll start planting cabbage and stuff.
These leaks here are bandit.
They are a very cold hardy one, so these will be the ones that will be wintering over, that
will be harvesting through the winter.
Leaks are, I think, a little tedious to plant because you've got to separate them out.
If we don't separate them, they won't grow to their full potential.
You can get your rows a little closer together.
If you set them up that the leaves of the leaks are going to grow out like this, so
you can kind of see how they're growing.
I've never done this before, but this year I'm going to try orienting the plants so that
the leaves will grow out that way, so you'll still have a little bit of space in between
here.
So we'll see how this works.
Let me look at the experiment.
You can plant them really fairly deeply.
Leaks have a nice big, you want to get a nice big white part.
That's really the best edible part of it, and the deeper you plant them, the larger the
white area is going to be.
These little ones that are a little shorter, I definitely won't plant quite as deeply.
And then as we're harvesting these, we will harvest them, every other plant, through the
row, and allow the other ones to grow bigger.
These guys are really growing well and starting to put on some sides.
We'll topdress with a high nitrogen fertilizer, like blood meal or something.
I just fertilized the shallots and garlic with some blood meal just a few days ago.
I'll come over about another 10 or 12 inches and make my next row.
These guys out.
It's a great thing about gardening in a community garden situation, is that you can learn from
fellow gardeners.
I also learn a lot when I'm researching stuff, when someone, a new gardener has a question
that I don't know the answer to, I learn a lot when I research it.
These low organically grown leeks start, I think we're just three dollars for the six
pack, and we're getting three good rows of leeks out of that.
One great thing about growing your own food is you can grow stuff that your family enjoys
that is either unavailable at the grocery store, or is really expensive at the grocery
store.
We have lots of families with kids here this year, more than last year, okay, and she's
a biker.
