Allium porrum. The Leek is a hardy biennial, for although it attains perfection in size and for culinary purposes the first year, it does not run to seed until the second, the perfecting of which it also often survives.

The whole plant is eaten, being employed in soups, etc, and is by some persons boiled and eaten with meat.

Varieties

There are four varieties; the Musselburgh, and the large London Leek, which are by far the best; the Scotch or Flag, which is larger and hardier; and the Flanders.

Time And Mode Of Sowing

It is raised solely from seed, which may be sown at any time during the spring.

These sowings are performed in general broadcast and raked in, though some gardeners employ drills, the plants to remain after thinning; the Leek, however, is so much benefitted by transplanting as obviously to point out the error of this practice.

Cultivation

When the plants are three or four inches in height, in eight or ten weeks after sowing, they must be weeded, hoed, and thinned, where growing too close, to two or three inches apart; water also being given, in dry weather, will, with the above treatment, strengthen and forward them for transplanting in another month, or when six or eight inches high. They must be taken away regularly from the seed bed; the ground being well watered previously, if not soft and easily yielding. When thinned out they may be left to remain in the seed bed six inches asunder, as they do not grow so large as the transplanted ones, which must be set by the dibble in rows ten inches apart, and eight in the lines, being inserted nearly down to the leaves, that the neck, by being covered with the earth, may be blanched; water in abundance must be given at the time of planting, and the long weak leaves shortened, but the roots left as uninjured as possible. The bed is hoed over occasionally with advantage, as well to kill the weeds as to loosen the soil. By this treatment, and by cutting off the tops of the leaves about once a month, as new ones are produced, the neck swells to a much larger size.

The several sowings above directed will yield a supply from August until the . following M ay, when they advance to seed. A portion should be always taken up and laid in sand previous to the ground being locked up by continued frost, but they will not keep many days in this situation.