Growing Leeks In The Greenhouse And Open Field

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

← Read the previous part "Growing leek seedlings in an apartment"

Leek is a delicious and healthy vegetable

Leek seedlings in the greenhouse

As I already noted, the option of growing leek seedlings at home is quite difficult.

There are several reasons for this:

- the need for a significant, and well-lit area, which will have to be allocated for onion seedlings;

- very frequent death of seedlings from all kinds of rot at the slightest waterlogging;

- certain difficulties in maintaining the required temperature regime.

Therefore, it is preferable for most gardeners to grow leek seedlings in a greenhouse. True, then you will have to abandon the very late varieties (since you will not be able to launch an unheated greenhouse in February). In addition, given the long growing season of leeks, the sowing itself still needs to be done at home - sowing seeds in sawdust (this will win one week).

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And after a week, during which it will be necessary to prepare the greenhouses, it is necessary to transport the sown seeds to it. Naturally, this option is possible only if the greenhouse is fully prepared in autumn, and in the spring fresh manure with sawdust and lime is added to it for heating. Then all this "pie" is sprinkled, as usual, with earth prepared in the greenhouse since autumn. Technically, it will all look like this.

1. Around March 1, cover the entire area of the greenhouse with a double or even triple layer of film for earlier thawing of the soil. Greenhouse doors, of course, also need to be tightly closed.

2. After two weeks, form ridges in the greenhouse: cover a layer of autumn organic matter with fresh manure, sprinkle with lime and sawdust; sprinkle with a layer of earth, adding ash and complex fertilizer such as nitrophoska or Kemira. Then spill the ridges with boiling water from a watering can (you will have to heat the bath, since you will need a lot of water) - if you fail, then just with cold water.

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3. Cover the entire greenhouse area again with foil.

4. At the same time, soak the onion seeds in sawdust at home and leave them in the apartment for germination. To prevent sawdust from drying out, containers with sawdust should be placed in plastic bags, but do not close them tightly, but leave an opening for ventilation. Then place the bowls with seeds in a warm place.

5. After a week, the soil in the greenhouse should warm up well enough, and the seeds should hatch. Then you should immediately start sowing (preferably at the beginning of the last decade of March). To do this, it is enough to scatter the seeds with sawdust (after mixing the seeds and sawdust with each other) over the required area and sprinkle with a thin layer of soil. At the end of sowing, it is imperative to mulch the soil with sawdust.

If necessary, the sowing should be watered. To increase the temperature of the soil and above it, it is very good to put plastic bottles with water in rows. It is advisable to make such rows along the entire outer side of the greenhouse, along the inner one and, if possible, between plantings directly on the ridges. Cover the entire greenhouse area again with a double layer of foil. All this together will give a very good thermal effect.

6. A week later, when the first shoots begin to appear, the film should be replaced with a thick covering material, which, due to the bottle barricade, will not be pressed close to the soil, but at some distance from it, which is quite enough for the emerging seedlings. In addition, it is necessary to install arcs from the greenhouse over the entire area of the greenhouse and stretch the film over them. As a result, the conditions for the leek will be the most suitable.

As for fertilizing and spraying, in a greenhouse, provided that fertile soil is formed, this is not required. It will be enough just to water the plants about once a week. Although spraying with epin will certainly not hurt.

If, due to weather conditions, it is not possible to sow the plants in time, then you can sprinkle sawdust with hatched seeds in a bowl with a thin layer of soil and hold it on the window for about a week, waiting for more favorable conditions. True, in this case, it will take much more time to plant, because you will need to select each plant and plant it carefully. But there is also a plus - the plants will be at the right distance from each other, and not the way the seeds fell by themselves in the sawdust.

Love does not love …

On the one hand, it is believed that it is easier to grow leeks than ordinary onions, because, according to official data, it is more resistant to onion diseases and pests. On the other hand, it is more difficult because he is very picky about growing conditions.

1. Leeks can form a normal crop only on neutral, fertile and loose soils. Waterlogged and acidic soils are completely unsuitable for growing leeks. It will not grow on heavy clay soils.

2. The root system of leeks is better developed and penetrates deeper than that of onions. Therefore, the fertile soil layer must be deep enough.

3. Leeks are photophilous and absolutely cannot stand shading.

4. This onion is extremely hygrophilous. The same mulching with any suitable material, for example, sawdust, will help to retain moisture in the soil (especially with our strong Ural winds). Plus, mulching will save you the hassle of constantly loosening the soil.

5. Leek is very picky about fertilizers and reacts positively to both organic and mineral fertilizers.

6. It is cold-resistant and able to withstand autumn frosts down to -7 ° С.

Agricultural technology in the ground

Garden bed preparation. Naturally, it is better to prepare a garden for leeks (as well as for most other vegetable crops) in the fall. The soil must be very fertile, otherwise there is nothing to try to grow it - you still cannot get a crop on poor soil. I bring in a substantial amount of humus from the greenhouse into the garden.

You can fill the ridge with semi-rotted manure or organic residues. Before planting, you need to add a complex fertilizer such as Kemir, water well and loosen the soil. The seedlings in the greenhouse will also need to be well shed to minimize the chance of severe damage.

Disembarkation. After 50-60 days, the seedlings usually have 3-4 feathers, and you can begin to plant them. In our conditions, this usually happens around mid-May.

According to the recommendations of agronomists, before planting, the seedlings are carefully disassembled and shortened by 1/3 both its leaves and roots. I never do this, and I believe that the less you damage the plants, the better. But in any case, you need to very carefully separate the plants (and their roots) from each other and plant them on a prepared bed. When planting, the plants should be slightly deepened (by 0.5-1 cm).

You should not save on the distance between plants, given that over the summer, leeks will need to be spud at least three times. The recommended distance between rows is 25-30 cm, and the distance between plants in a row is about 10-15 cm (depending on the variety - the larger the onion should grow, the greater the distance).

After planting, the plants need to be watered (it is nice to add huminates for better survival) and the soil between them should be mulched, and then covered with a covering material. The covering material will save you from excessive sunlight and temperature extremes, and it will also help to preserve humidity - then you will have to water the onion about once a week (without covering it, you need to do this every day). With loosening, the picture is the same - without mulching, you will have to loosen the beds about once a week, with mulching, you can limit yourself to loosening once a month.

Top dressing. As already mentioned, leek grows quickly only on well-filled soil with organic matter and with abundant (but not excessive) watering. If the soil is not fertile enough, then the growth rate slows down significantly, and this is completely unacceptable in the conditions of our short Ural summer.

Therefore, even on highly fertile soils, top dressing is necessary, and it is not even worth talking about poor soils - it is better not to try to grow leeks on them. On good land, leeks will need to be fed 2-3 times throughout the season. As a top dressing, it is good to use the diluted "Giant" (or Kemira) with the addition of slurry. In addition, in our Ural conditions, with a constant lack of potassium in the soil, additional fertilizing with potassium fertilizers is required (2 tablespoons of potassium sulfate per bucket).

Depending on the summer, the number of potash dressings can range from one (good sunny summer) to four (cloudy and rainy). In addition, around the middle of the growing season, it is necessary to sprinkle the soil around the plants with ash, which will significantly improve the taste of the leeks.

If the soil in the leek garden is not highly fertile, then try weekly top dressing. You will also get the result, but, of course, not the same as in the variant described above. And in this case, you will need to start feeding within two weeks after planting the leek on the beds.

Hilling. The length and thickness of the tender leg of the leek depend both on the depth of planting of seedlings and on the height of the subsequent hilling, especially in the second half of the growing season.

Therefore hilling is one of the distinctive features of leeks. Moreover, your harvest - the length of the leg - will ultimately depend on how seriously you take this operation. We must try to huddle the leek higher so that the leg is longer. It is because of the need for hilling plantings that this bow is planted at a considerable distance from each other.

In addition, hilling is not carried out at one time. This should be done gradually. We huddled a little the first time, then after 2-3 weeks the operation was repeated, etc. And you can start hilling from the middle of summer, when the weak shoots of the planted seedlings will already turn into powerful plants. In general, hilling is recommended to be carried out about three times per season, but you can do this up to five times.