A Bed of Leeks

When we moved into our house nine years ago, I built some raised beds for vegetable production. I have never dug the beds since, just mulched them once a year and used a small hand cultivator to make a seed bed.

The photo shows a bed of leeks on november 1st 2011. These leeks were sown direct in April. I priced leeks last week and at current cost this bed of leeks is worth about 30 euros.

For about twenty five years from the late 1980s until 2009 there was no really cold winter weather in Ireland and an incredible range of vegetables would thrive in the Irish winter. But in the recent two cold winters leeks are one of the few vegetables that survived in my garden.

In our household leek and potato soup is a standard winter dish.