Leeks and Allium Leaf Miner

We are at the peak of gardening season at the moment, with so much weeding, dead-heading, tying-in and the seemingly endless mowing and strimming for clients that my own garden has threatened to get out of control. It is a good job that I like the natural rambling look! Although I wish the bindweed and brambles would stick to the hedges where we can appreciate them.

The big jobs for June are lifting the garlic and planting the leeks; both are jobs that I find daunting yet in reality are pretty speedy as long as I'm organised. 

The garlic will stand for another week or so, but this weekend was time to plant out the leeks. When we first came house hunting it was a dank December, but every garden seemed to have a load of leeks; they will happily put up with drought, freezing temperatures and a blanket of snow. And they are so versatile in the kitchen: I love leeks!

The leek bed (empty bed on the left) has stood empty over winter with just a top dressing of compost and then a duvet of straw to keep the weed seeds from germinating and protect the soil from the winter rain. 

This is my first year using the straw mulch and one disadvantage I've come across is that the soil can be wet, heavy and cold below the duvet. My squash plants have been incredibly slow to get away this year and I suspect that may be the cause. Last week I pulled back the straw covering on the leek bed to let the sun - illusive as it was - get some warmth into the ground. 

The ground was almost completely weed free so the amount of preparation has been minimal, just digging out the worst of the mole runs, particularly the main highway they always establish down both sides of the beds. We are between moles at present: I trapped one in the live trap last week and relocated it a kilometre or so up the road and over the other side of the river! It was a good sized animal but had only been in the trap a short time as I'd checked it less than an hour previously. I tolerate moles everywhere bar the potager,but given that I have the best worms in there a new resident usually turns up pretty quickly!

I sow my leeks in a large pot some time in late February or early March and although the books always say plant them out when they've reached the size of a pencil, mine rarely get that big and yet can often grow into leeks the size of my arm. They get planted once they're big enough to handle and have stopped growing on in the pot, presumably because they've run out of food. I've two varieties this year, Musselburgh, a Scottish variety that stands really well in the cold and wet, and Long de Mézières, a more delicate long-shafted, cold-resistant variety from near Rennes in Brittany.

 Leeks are planted by simply dropping them into a hole made with a dibber and then watering well. I add a little compost into the hole after planting simply to protect any exposed roots from the sun. Using a straight edge bit of wood I first make my holes in rows, usually in batches of about thirty at a time.

I then turn the pot of baby plants out into a shallow tray of water which allows me to tease the individual plants apart without damaging the roots. One plant is dropped into each hole and may have to be encouraged into the hole with the dibber, especially if there are a lot of roots. Some people advocate trimming the roots but I've never quite seen the point: plants need roots, especially when they've just been tranplanted. I then give each plant a good water, filling the hole with water, which should also wash it down to the bottom of the hole. I then drop in a little compost and water  briefly again. There is no need to fill the hole with soil; the leek will slowly grow into it!

Apart from watering in really dry weather and keeping the ground weeded there is little more to do - birds will sometimes pull the tiny plants out, so just drop any back in as before. However, and it is a huge however, if you live in an area infested with a pest called allium leaf miner you will need to protect your crop from these tiny flies. The female lays her eggs on the base of the plant and the little maggots eat the growing plant.  A small amount of damage is tolerable, but rotting and infection can become a problem. Plus, as I know to my cost, a small number of pests will become an infestation after  a couple of seasons.

The flies have two cycles per year, the first overwintering as pupae before emerging and laying eggs in March through to June and then those offspring repeating the process again from September to November. 







I have bought an anti-insect mesh which will cover the leeks from planting until the beginning of July and then again from September.

The garlic is similarly vulnerable and spent the danger period under a couple of old net curtains, although I had to remove it in May as the plants were too big. Fingers crossed my garlic has escaped the fly; I'll find out in the next week or so.