In wildness is the preservation of the world – Henry David Thoreau

I’ve tried to grow leeks in the past without much success, but since we’re putting more effort into the garden this year as many people probably are, I thought I would try again. If you buy leeks in the grocery store, they are quite pricey. The ambitious me is always thinking I will start my own seed and grow them on to plant. That requires the seeds being started around January or February, and so far, I haven’t been organized enough to make that happen.

This year my gardening friend Bob and I ordered leek plants and split the order leaving us each with around 35 plants. Upon opening the little sheet of waxed paper, they were wrapped in, my first thought was, “these are so tiny.” It’s hard to imagine that these little slivers of green, the size of a blade of grass will grow into large 12-inch leeks with the diameter of a 50-cent piece. But, from the acorn grows the mighty oak, so I have faith.

I was determined though to see if I could start leeks from seed and so I ordered a packet of seed. As instructed, I planted the tiny black seeds and have been rewarded with two pots of little leek seedlings. That’s my seedlings in those brown pots. It seems they have been in the pots for months with little noticeable change in size but I’m hoping the leek below ground is growing in size. I will soon see as I remove these from the pot and separate them out for planting.

There are a couple of ways recommended for growing leeks. One, you can dig a trench, plant the leek in the bottom, and then fill in the dirt as the leek grows. The other method is to plant the leeks and then hill around them as they grow. Bob chose the hilling method while we chose to dig trenches. After planting the tiny slivers of green in the bottom of the trenches where you must strain your eyes to see them, we questioned whether we may have been a little too optimistic with the depth of our trenches. What, you can’t see them in there? It will be interesting to see whether we’ll be having leek and potato soup this fall, or, just potato soup!