When Are Leeks Ready To Harvest?
Are you growing leeks at home in the garden or on the allotment? Do you need to know tips on when are leeks ready to harvest so that they taste their best? We will explain the best time you should be harvesting those delicious leeks for your Sunday dinner or for making leek soup with your fresh organic vegetables. You can also find out more information about growing leeks here.
Allotment and Kitchen Garden Book
Are you starting an allotment or planning on growing your own fruit, vegetables, herbs, and flowers in a kitchen garden? If so we highly recommend the book Allotment Month By Month. This does exactly what it does on the cover to help you with what you should be doing in the allotment and kitchen garden each month. Below you can see the link for Amazon where you can purchase the book directly. This book is extremely popular with all allotment holders as you will read in the reviews:-
You can check out all the allotment and kitchen garden books we recommend here.
When To Harvest Your Leeks
Leeks are not fast-growing vegetables. Leeks can take a while to get going in the allotment and garden. Some leeks can take around 4 months to grow into full maturity and be ready for harvesting. Leeks are often sown in January with crops being picked from September onwards in the garden and allotment. Leeks usually grow to around 2.5cm in diameter. You can always improve your crop of leeks by feeding them on a regular basis, keeping them weed-free and watered well.
You can usually tell when the leek is ready to be harvested from the garden as it will be a nice fat vegetable that has a white end that is around 7cm long. If you are wanting a long white shaft on the end of the leek you can do this by pulling up the soil around the vegetable as they are growing taller. However, make sure you don’t get soil in the leaves as this will make them rot.
Once leeks are ready to harvest they will not die back like their family member the onion and shallot. The ends of the leek will usually go a dark green in color.
If your leeks are not a winter-hardy variety make sure you pick them before the first frost as this can cause the plant to go mushy and rot.
How Do You Harvest Leeks?
When harvesting leeks do not pull them up by hand. Leeks are certainly not strong plants and they could easily snap into pieces losing all the hard work that you have put into growing them. The best way to harvest a leek is to dig it up with a fork and shake all the loose soil off the bottom of the plant before taking home to wash unless you can wash them at the allotment.
How Do You Store Leeks?
Leeks do not store very well at all so you are best harvesting them as and when you actually need them. If you are storing them they can be stored in a fridge for up to 7 days. Ideally, you should be eating them straight away for best-tasting leeks. If you are looking at freezing leeks you can find out here.
Hopefully, this article will have helped with knowing when to harvest leeks to get the best out of the crops that you grow in the garden and your allotment.
