Leeks

Yesterday I harvested the last leeks of the season. As I was digging them, I realised that at any time of the year I have leeks at some stage of growth on my allotment.

As I come to the end of this seasons crop I already have little seedlings growing.

These will be transplanted in a few weeks once each leek is about the thickness of a pencil.


Although I have harvested all the leeks that I am going to eat, I have of course left some to flower so that I can collect the seeds for future years.

There are flower buds already forming on these.

After flowering the seed heads develop. The next photo was taken in September.

I pick the seed heads in the autumn and keep them in a cool dry place until I shake out the seeds to plant in early spring.

So the life history of the leeks I ate yesterday,

• Summer 2006 - a leek left to flower and go to seed


• Autumn 2006 - seed head picked and stored over the winter


• Spring 2007 - seeds sowed in seed bed


• Summer 2007 - leek seedlings transplanted to growing position


• Autumn 2007 - Spring 2008 - leeks harvested.

Not exactly fast food!

In a fast changing world, there are aspects of our lives that would be unrecognisable and probably incomprehensible to our grandparents and great-grandparents, yet I know that both my grandfathers and their fathers, grew vegetables and saved seed from year to year in the same way that I do now.

Its nice to feel the connection to the past as I tend my little plot, looking after the soil and the plants and growing food for my family in the same way as generations of people before me.