Leonard Moorehead, the Urban Gardener: Hallelujah, the Leek

Sunday, December 27, 2015

Leonard Moorehead, GoLocalProv Gardening Expert

Gardeners are sensitive people. We delight in sunshine, find music in the wind, our feet understand gravity. Action made manifest is evident in lush green turf. Our winter mulches are in constant transition, shredded leaves, eel grass and seaweed, and wood chips are heathen. Frost is a moment, beneath the winter blanket our allies the earthworms feast. Some dianthus, forsythia, plums and cherries cast away caution and bloom. Within our gardens is a universe of wonder and joy. 

We welcome resilience. With family, friends, our neighbors too, we share last summer’s apricot jam, make sauces from raspberries frozen a heartbeat from a summer’s day, and prepare fine dishes from our plots and you can too, under the mulch are delicious potatoes and leeks ready to pull. 

Leeks are champions in my urban garden. The vast allium family offers many choices for the home gardener. All tuberous plants benefit from a hidden point of view, consider their lives under the soil, often out of sight. Leeks offer the best of both worlds, their long thick pearly onion white stalks thrive in thickly mulched soils. Their distinctive green foliage are flags for us and make them easy to find. Like all members of the onion family, leeks are sun lovers. Seek out those high priced shallots, garlics, and the more common kitchen herb, chives. Have some fun with Egyptian top onions. All offer large doses of flavor, minerals and vitamins to the gardener. 

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Seed once for leeks and retain them for life. For once I abandon serendipity and plant leek seeds in geometric grid fashion, simply rows and lines in a space with a long lease. They are delicate seedlings that mature in one summer. This only the beginning however, thickly seeded rows offer thinned out leeks within weeks of planting. Immediately replant extras or begin the transition from rigid form into a natural bed and replant a few inches away from close neighbors. 

Leeks do not overwhelm a gardener with a single crop but endure as a constant edible staple. Allow the most robust to send up their distinctive flower stalk. Enjoy the galaxy white flower umbels. Top heavy, the flowers form large seed clusters. Nature topples the seed filled flower pods, l assist once in a while by bending the seed head into fresh space or harvested areas. Continue a permanent mulch. Within a year a thick patch of leeks at various stages of maturity will fill in the original simple square bed. Chaos is welcome here, pull up the largest, and foster the younger. Leeks roots tangle but are easily gently separated. Wash off the harvest with the garden hose, compost and sometimes soil lodges in the leaves, clean off outdoors. 

I move leeks around the garden as fine companion plants. They are famously anti biotic. The hearty flavors onions offer are noisome to most garden insect pests. Roses and tomatoes benefit from alliums grown nearby. The supply of seeds is bountiful and highly viable. Bulbous shallots and garlic thrive in the same soil. Technique is a bit different. Shallots form numerous side bulbs. Like all onions, the entire plant offers culinary opportunities, most cuisines rely upon the walnut sized shallot bulb. There are many varieties of this classic French allium, seed catalogs are a good resource for types, I’ve enjoyed success from those offered at local farmers markets and sold as food. Often the marketed shallot is cheaper than the nursery seedlings and offer a visible example of the final crop. Plant thickly. Separate smaller plants from their more robust parents and replant. A conservative gardener may establish a clump and leave it at that. Those with more demanding appetites may need to add new types or start over again. Shallots store well in the ground and like leeks offer good tasting food during the winter months. 

Egyptian top onions are among the earliest domesticated foods. Often promoted as a novelty plant do not overlook their appeal. Devote a square yard or two for the top onions. Children and adults are amused to see the plants flower and form small purplish onion sets clustered on the top heavy blooms. The sturdy stalks bend under the small onions. Tuck under mulch into fine humus rich soil and the cluster will quickly form a clump of new onions. Try to keep up with these just a step from the wild onions! All alliums respond well to thick mulches. 

Garlics are fall planted alliums. Our mild fall and exceptionally mild December allow plenty of time to plant garlic gloves. They are slow to form large market sized garlics and require a full year to mature. However, like their relatives, garlic is tasty at any size. Garlic is likewise an excellent companion plant. Mine thrive around the roses and enjoy the thorny protection. Co-operation is key to success. 

Not to be a Philistine, put in the giant flowering Globe allium. Each spring flowering allium send up yard length flower stalks and off fireworks bursts of delicate purple or more subtle white flowers. Each is a tower of beauty. Bees and hummingbirds circle around them. Each flower is small, collectively, they are purple haze. Flowering Globe Allium form large bulbs that live for years. Allow the flowers to form seeds and plant near the mother. Mark the location of the Globe Allium, the plant dies back until indistinguishable in mid-summer. They are most vulnerable to forgetful gardeners who accidentally dig them up to fill in the vacant space. However, like potatoes, many are overlooked and greet gardeners each spring. 

Perhaps you’ve put away the shovels, locked the toolshed, snow shovels and salt are close to the door. Gardeners eye the sunny window sill. Soon, a nice pot is out, our green thumb itches. Try the amaryllis for fun. Once pricey and hard to find, the amaryllis is now ubiquitous. Their large bulbs will sprout and bloom in a pot full of pebbles. Take them out of their holiday gift wrappings and give them a bright, watery home. Their deep red blooms offer color and joy during those cold weather days when we’re more inside than out. Some gardeners hold onto their amaryllis from year to year, kept in rich potting soil and kept watered into spring they transplant into the sunny garden, some folks bury the pot to dig up before frost. Amaryllis are not cold hardy but are sturdy and will survive for many years if brought into a cool dark place. Grow several for winter forcing and enjoy weeks of cheerful bloom. 

Gardeners are sensitive people. We gather together indoors and share food and drink. Give to family and friends the fruits of your garden labors. Slather apricot jam on toast. Bake peach pies and add a dollop of ice cream, simmer Vichyssoise on the stove. Enjoy. Life is far too short to forego the pleasures of sunshine, wind’s music, the blessing of two feet on the ground. 

Leonard Moorehead is a life- long gardener. He practices organic-bio/dynamic gardening techniques in a side lot surrounded by city neighborhoods in Providence, RI. His adventures in composting, wood chips, manure, seaweed, hay and enormous amounts of leaves are minor distractions to the joy of cultivating the soil with flowers, herbs, vegetables, berries, and dwarf fruit tree. 

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