Leek Crop

Leeks are one of the most important crops for us, they usually get a good price, are in steady demand throughout the winter and will stand through hard winter frosts. The crop this year is just about ideal. the individual plants are not too big but have nice long shanks giving a good balance of size and flavour.We have almost cleared the early season crop seen below the two central beds. These will not take frost as well as the blue green cultivars which should stand through the hardest (almost) winter.
The only year that I have sen significant winter loss of leeks was a few years ago when there was an extraordinarily mild autumn and early winter. which was followed by a hard frost of minus 8C. It appears that the plants were growing soft and a heavy frost damaged them before they could harden up.

All our leeks are grwon through a biodegradable sheet which looks like polythene but decomposes over the year. Between the beds we sow white clover which grows into the leek beds throughout the year giving some green manure to incorporate next year.