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Post by chrysanthemum on Nov 11, 2022 20:23:37 GMT -6
On August 8 this year my youngest child and I started a whole bunch of seeds for fall inside. A good portion of that was leeks. They’re slow sprouters and my seeds weren’t brand new, but at first we only had 12 out of 60 starts germinate. I think we put those in the ground at the very end of August. Here’s a shot of the biggest of that bunch (along with some volunteer potato plants in the area. It makes me think of Vichyssoise.) After I had transplanted the leeks, I still had the ungerminated starts sitting out on my back deck. They sat out there for a long time, and I did water them, but they didn’t do anything until our overnight temperatures dropped down below 60. I don’t have written in my garden journal just when that was, but I ended up with some pretty good germination when things got cooler overnight. Just over a month ago I took all those starts and stuck them in a pot, but they’ve been growing there for a couple of weeks at least. Today I added more compost to the post to cover the growing stalks a bit more. Here’s a shot of what it looks like. I have never successfully grown large leeks from seed to harvest. In 2017 I had a great set of transplants that I had grown and hardened off, but we found out we were moving, so I gave them away to a friend from church. She later sent me a picture of her daughter with the beautiful, large leeks they had harvested. I tried planting leeks from seed our first fall in Texas. I will say that they were a crop that the deer did not eat, but they didn’t do well for me. We eventually did harvest them, but they never got large. I think they needed better soil and more nutrients in the container in which I planted them. I’m hoping for at least a handful of good leeks this go round. Really, with the price of leeks, it would probably take only three for me to recoup the cost the seeds I bought.
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Post by woodeye on Nov 12, 2022 10:25:41 GMT -6
I hope you get to see these grow all the way through, chrysanthemum. It appears that they have a good chance of doing just that, and I look forward to the pictures of them full grown.
I'll try to grow some one of these days, I'm sure of that. For my first year in the Iron Curtain, I'm going to stick to my old reliable Candy onions. I have 5 bunches of plants ordered now, so in about 3-1/2 months I'll have my 2023 garden started...
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Post by chrysanthemum on Nov 12, 2022 17:03:16 GMT -6
I actually got seeds this summer to start my onion transplants this fall, but I never managed to do it. My leek seeds were getting old, and I decided to have them be my allium crop this year. I sent my seed garlic in a package to my mother to see if she could have better success with it than I could. Given the forecasts for the continuance of drought this winter, I’m cutting back on the amount that I’ll need to water, though I’m sure I’ll keep adding as time goes by.
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Post by amyinowasso on Nov 13, 2022 9:51:27 GMT -6
I think I read that leeks are the only plant not effected by Persephone days. So they'll grow through winter. Chickens dug up mine. I'm a ;little envious.
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Post by woodeye on Nov 13, 2022 9:58:34 GMT -6
I think I read that leeks are the only plant not effected by Persephone days. So they'll grow through winter. Chickens dug up mine. I'm a ;little envious. I read that too, amyinowasso. I was surprised when I read it, I thought they'd be just like onions, but not so...
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Post by chrysanthemum on Nov 13, 2022 14:00:35 GMT -6
amyinowasso, you just introduced me to the term “Persephone Days.” I figured it meant shorter daylight hours just from the name, but I see that it refers specifically to the time when daylight is less than 10 hours. I was familiar with less-than-10-hours-of-daylight period but didn’t know it had such a literary names. When I was learning about gardening in Texas, I took notes on the average daylight length each month in my garden notebook, and we are so far south that we actually don’t have any Persephone Period. The shortest we get according to my notes is 10 hours and 13 minutes. I’m sorry to hear that the chickens destroyed your leeks. The bright side, though, (I think) is that you have chickens.
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Post by amyinowasso on Nov 13, 2022 14:22:16 GMT -6
Sadly, no more chickens. We want more, but then we must get a better chicken house. We bought a fancy dog kennel to contain them, but it has not been assembled. They turned my onion bed into a dust bath. In the end they were fenced into the back third of the yard. Not well enough to keep them there or to keep them safe. It is what it is. There names were Speckles, Miss Independence, Stupid, All most as Stupid and The Other White One. They had other names, but this is what I ended up calling them, which might explain why they didn't survive.
It's great you don't have persephone days. I need my light as much as the plants.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Nov 13, 2022 17:32:22 GMT -6
Speaking of "Persephone Days" The US Navy has a wonderful tool for finding the length of days at any location in the world, by typing the desired Latitude and Longitude of any city into their database. I use their tables to calculate the length of days for many of my potential seed customers.
Through years of trial and error in places like Las Tablas, Panama; Bangalore, India; Saudi, Arabia; Myanmar; Papua, New Guinea; and Liberia, West Africa; we've discovered that the variety of okra I've developed does not do well at all if located below 12° North or South Latitude.
For that reason, I try to avoid ever selling any of my okra seeds to anyone below those Latitudes because of the potential disappointment they would likely experience from attempting to grow them there.
Here's the URL to the Navy's Duration of Daylight/Darkness Tables: aa.usno.navy.mil/data/Dur_OneYear
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Post by FrostyTurnip on Nov 18, 2022 13:18:15 GMT -6
Sadly, no more chickens. We want more, but then we must get a better chicken house. We bought a fancy dog kennel to contain them, but it has not been assembled. They turned my onion bed into a dust bath. In the end they were fenced into the back third of the yard. Not well enough to keep them there or to keep them safe. It is what it is. There names were Speckles, Miss Independence, Stupid, All most as Stupid and The Other White One. They had other names, but this is what I ended up calling them, which might explain why they didn't survive. It's great you don't have persephone days. I need my light as much as the plants. I think of you often. Your post about daylight times taught me. So I think Okay, Amy said "The middle of November is when some plants shut down fown" to paraphrase. I struggle to remember daylight lengths. Have missed ya.
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Post by amyinowasso on Nov 19, 2022 10:10:03 GMT -6
@frostyturnips, you know who taught me about Persephone days. I've missed you, too.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Nov 27, 2022 10:14:49 GMT -6
My leeks in the pot are still growing. I have a couple of basil plants in taller pots nearby, and the cold and wet has made them start dropping their leaves. I picked up several handfuls from the ground this morning and decided that I’d just lightly mulch the leeks with them.
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Leeks
Nov 27, 2022 11:55:02 GMT -6
Post by woodeye on Nov 27, 2022 11:55:02 GMT -6
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Post by chrysanthemum on Jan 22, 2023 16:07:12 GMT -6
It’s been a while since I officially updated the leeks, I see. Most of the potted leeks did survive the pre-Christmas freezes with no protection. Last week, I think, I gave them more compost to build them up. Yesterday I top dressed them with a little cottonseed meal, then filled the rest of the pot with some shredded leaves. Here’s how things were looking before I cleaned off the plants and watered things in. I’m hoping these will have a couple more months of good growth at least before it gets really hot. (I hope for more than just a couple of months in actuality, but I have to be prepared for early heat down here.)
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Post by chrysanthemum on Mar 19, 2023 18:21:14 GMT -6
I decided to celebrate the last day of (astronomical) winter with a nice pot of vichyssoise for dinner. We didn’t have a huge number of potatoes, so it was a small batch, perfect for the small leeks I harvested from the garden today. A couple came from my raised bed, but I also pulled a few from around the large pot where they’ve been growing nicely. I figured that thinning them wouldn’t hurt. When we eat leeks, we use not only the white part but also a good bit of the green as far up the stalk as it still seems pretty tender. It’s not all the green part as the leaves do tend to get tough, especially the outer ones, but our soup was more a pale green color rather than white. It was quite tasty.
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Post by chrysanthemum on May 31, 2023 20:08:17 GMT -6
I harvested several leeks today from my crowded pot. When I brought them to the backyard where my younger two kids were hanging out, the ten year old made her little brother stand up and measure himself against the leeks. He’s fifty one inches tall, and the leeks were several inches longer than he was. I really had no idea since they don’t stand up that straight in the garden. I cooked them up with some chicken, potatoes, and Woods Mountain Crazy Beans for a delicious dinner. I have to admit that the leeks were my favorite part. I expect I’ll be harvesting more pretty soon. It’s officially turning hot here, and it’s time.
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