Starting Leek Seeds

And so it begins. It is February and I have planted seeds. This might sound crazy and obsessive but indeed there are somethings you may start planting now... namely leeks.

My love affair with leeks began a few years ago when I decided to comb through a vegetarian cookbook for interesting new things to make for dinner. Our diet tends to have a vegetarian spin on it in order to pursue healthier eating habits. Anyway, exploring these new recipes exposed me to vegetables I was not accustomed to eating or cooking with. Wandering through the produce section to find these edibles was a learning experience to be sure. (So that's what a such-and-such looks like. I always wondered what people did with those things.) Some may find it disturbing that it was not until a few years ago that I ate a leek... and I agree. Therefore, after discovering the joy of this wonderful vegetable I decided that I should grown them in my garden... and have ever since.

The first year of leek growing I direct seeded in the ground. They grew well, but were kind of small. The following year I tried starting them off indoors- which was what one of my gardening books suggested... in February. The seeds that I started indoors I planted out as seedlings in spring and direct sowed some more seeds as well. The seedlings that I started in side... ended up maturing into larger leeks than the ones I direct sowed outdoors. This all makes sense because the leek has a particularly long growing season. Even though you could technically munch on it as soon as it pokes out of the soil, the longer it grows the bigger it gets! Direct sowing outdoors just didn't give it enough time. Now every year I start at least one seed tray of leeks indoors to get a good harvest of leeks in the fall. Last year I waited until March, but this year I am going for the February planting date. According to my records it should take them about a week to start emerging from the soil.

Something worth mentioning- About a month ago now, when I began dreaming of this years' garden, my boyfriend insisted that I take stock of our old leftover seeds from last year instead of automatically purchasing all new ones. Where did I store this collection of seeds... in a small cardboard box... in our garage... unattached and frozen. Supposedly you can store your seeds by freezing them, so theoretically the seeds should... still be fine? Since I had so many leek seeds leftover from 2009, I decided to try them out and that is what is in the seed tray pictured above. It will be interesting to find out what happens... will these guys have what it takes to germinate? We'll find out in about a week!