Leeks, Carrots and winter

The next few weeks I will be busy preparing beds to plant the majority of my winter crops. Today I started with the Leeks. Last winter the Leeks were fantastic. We started harvesting around May and this continued until they started to bolt in early spring. There are little other onion options at this time of year apart from those hanging and we tend to be running out mid winter, just when the leeks are in their prime. And we also prefer the subtle flavours of leek. Leeks also do well on heavy soils, seeming to take any battering winter can throw at them.

I start my leeks on October 15th. I take a small 1m by 1m space of bed, add some mushroom compost and COF and dig over and add all the contents of the packet. The leeks come up thick and fast and by late Jan they are about the width of a pencil. A few weeks back the bed that will house the coming seasons winter leeks are prepared by digging over 4l of COF per 10m with horse manure and mushroom compost added. This settled over the past few weeks and today I created 20 to 30cm deep trenches about 40cm apart. Some well composted manure was added to the trenches and watered thoroughly. The leeks I grew from seed are then lifted with a fork, soil shaken off and then moved to their new homes. I normally have many seedlings left over to share with others. I bury these seedlings to the first leaf notch and over the months move soil up the stem to blanch and lengthen the white stem of the leek.

Leek seedlings started Oct 15

Final Leek Bed. I had many leftovers so have added more rows throughout the patch so we have plenty for winter

What else am I planting over the coming weeks. Here is a snapshot.

• 10m of carrots (Merida)
• couple of metres of beetroot (these sell well over winter at the Cygnet Markets)
• Broccoli (Arcadia and Purple Sprouting) - will be trying a new variety from Inspirations Seeds also Broccoli Marathon.
• Brussel Spprouts
• Cauliflower mix
• Kale
• Mizuna and Mibuna
• Lettuce

Last year anything planted after Feb did not generally get large enough to grow well during the low sunlight months of winter. The exception to this was some Cabbage (Spring Hero) - see Inspirations seeds catalogue.

We are now picking Tomato daily, The first of the Roma's has been harvested from the Hothouse with the majority coming from the "kotlas" and "gold nugget" plants. Steve Solomon's greatly talked about "Legend" looks close to ripening and both bushes are packed with good sized toms. The Riesenstraube seem a couple of weeks off also, but when they come in we will be overloaded with cherry toms.

Tomato "Legend" - Looking forward to picking these soon.

The unknown hill billy tom (I sourced this from Kate at Vegetable Vagabond)is covered with good sized fruit. I believe these are a yellowish fruit so will be interesting to see how they taste, but they look like they will bear a very large yield of fruit.

Tomato "Hill Billy"

The indeterminate tomato vines seemed to have the growth checked from the hot weather and 41 degree day a few weeks back. I am not sure but from hearing how some other peoples toms are faring this may be the cause. They have a number of fruit on them however I am sure they are not as large vines as last year. The dry weather may also be a contributing factor but I did space my indeterminate toms no closer than 1m by 1m to assist with the possibility of a dry summer. We still have Feb and March left so I am sure we will all be picking buckets of indeterminate toms by late feb. I hope so as we are planning on making a great deal of sauce and chutney's.

After my early corn set back due to some thieving from either the avifauna  or slug/snail damage, the replacements are now coming on well with a number now setting their corn. While my spring/early summer broccoli was a fizzler this year (last year was the exact opposite), I am trialing a new variety this summer called "Summer Purple". They were planted late December and seem to be growing with all guns blazing.

Summer Purple Broccoli

 

Corn (The middle 4 rows are the 2nd plantings. The first were hammered by birds/snails or a ghost. The sides are top-ups not planted till early Dec (hope they ripen before the cold arrives)