Transplanting Leeks

We started our leeks in medium sized pots - about 6-8in pots. Just a pot full of compost, sprinkle the seeds, hope for the best. Each pot is now packed with baby leeks, so we're very happy.

The leeks will go in the potato bed once I've dug up the potatoes, but the potato foliage has only just started to die off. That means I won't be planting out for a good few weeks yet. The pots are far too crowded for the leeks to thicken up.

After pulling up some carrots, I had two deep troughs empty. We have a lot of large 12in pots spare now that we've destroyed the blighted tomato plants. I've decided to temporarily transplant the leeks into these pots and troughs. This will give them room to grow properly for a couple of months and then I can transplant some to their final positions in the ground. 

I've seen some people trimming the roots and top-growth on their leeks, but I've also seen others not trimming. I've definitely seen a video on YouTube of Monty Don planting out without trimming and pretty sure I've seen a video of him trimming the leeks too.

I spent a while reading up on whether to trim the roots or not, and the pros and cons of trimming or not. It seems that that only reason to trim the roots is to make planting easier - as we're dropping them in to holes, a bundle of roots just gets in the way. However, if the hole is big enough, it should be easy to twist the leeks as we lower them into the hole, thereby twisting the roots.

I decided that as our leeks are still very small, I would prefer not to trim the roots. If roots are trimmed, the leeks (as with all aliums) will grow new roots. Trimming the roots might slow down growth as it's putting more energy into growing new roots than in to growing the leek. This shouldn't normally be a problem, but we've had really poor weather this year, so the leeks are a lot smaller than they normally would be at this time of year.

I separated the Musselburgh leeks and planted them into the deep troughs. I made holes about 3in deep just using my finger - there's no point making the holes any bigger at this time. I planted out 90 leeks in total. They were a bit fiddly with the roots there.

The Bandit leeks are being transplanted into the 12in tomato pots, 9 per pot. I've decided to trim the roots on some, and not on others. Apparently if we trim the roots, we should also trim the leaves back, so I've done that too. 63 done so far, plenty more to do later.

The Autumn Giant leeks are looking good, but I haven't touched them yet. Probably a job for this evening ....