Garden Dreaming – Sow Seeds Now For Growing Leeks

Are you anxious to get planting and doing a little garden dreaming? You’re in luck because it’s time to sow seeds now for growing leeks.

Every year when January rolls around, I start pouring over my gardening and seed catalogs and begin planning my garden. It’s like, Christmas is over, let’s go straight to spring. Alas, it doesn’t quite work that way, but in the meantime during the winter months I wait, I have something to look forward to.

For some, all this snow and cold is the best weather ever. My daughter Caroline loves it and could spend hours sledding down the luge that Sean built in our backyard. I was grumbling to her the other day about winter in general, and she said to me, “Mom, it’s cool to love winter and all it brings. What’s not cool is to be cold.”

I’ve thought about this and I think I get it, but I ended up filing it in my brain under Modern Day Teenager Slang.

Back to our regularly scheduled snow storm and me craving more than ever to do something, anything, pertaining to the garden. I went straight to the cigar box where I store my seeds and started thumbing through the packets, and though I don’t start sowing seeds inside until mid to late March, there had to be a veg that I’m planning to grow that takes longer to germinate.

Hello leeks, nice to meet you. Thank you for coming to my winter pity party.

Let me back up for just a sec – remember this post where I showed you how to plant shallots and garlic in the fall? I started thinking then, that I wanted to try growing scallions and leeks as well. They’re easy to grow, and also grow beautifully in raised beds. There’s room for them in my herb garden, so we’ll go with that.

I cook with leeks a lot. They’re a delicious addition to a mirepoix for soups and stews, and they make for a stellar main ingredient as well. Remember this Cook With Brooke, staring leeks?! Well, four seed packets in, and there were the leeks with the back of the packet instructing to sow seeds indoors 5-7 weeks before last frost of the season. Deep down, I know I’m sowing a little early, but yesterday with another snow storm looming, I thought, what the heck. I’m doin’ it.

I headed up to the garden house to get my supplies and planted the seeds in moist soil, four per pot, leaving an inch or so between. Once they sprout, within a couple weeks, I’ll divide the plants and repot. I wrote out a quick label with the date, and placed them in the dining room window, facing south. I’ll mist with water twice daily and patiently wait for sprouts.

Although I only planted one type of plant, it was nutrients for my soul. Lifted my spirits and got me thinking, maybe tomorrow I’ll force some daffodil bulbs. I think I’m on to something. Getting my garden on, in February – heck yeah, I’m diggin that!!

Stay tuned for daffodil talk next week!