Leaving Leeks to Flower.

[bluemoon]

I left a few of last winter's leeks in the ground and allowed them to flower as I was told that they attracted bees and hoverflies. 'Attract' is probably an understatement, each flower had at least a dozen bees on it yesterday afternoon, all at the same time, and as, for this year only, the leeks are beside the lavender, the whole area is swarming with so many different species of bee I could sit and watch for hours and probably still not see all the different types. - not much actual work done yesterday. I've never done this before, but I'll definitely do it every year in future. And now my lottie has all those lovely pollinators visiting I'm going to organise some overwintering places for them. Oh, and the leek flowers are different colours from white through varying shades of lilac to purple even though they're all the same variety.....that was a pleasant surprise too.

[zazen999]

I like to let leeks, garlic and onions flower. If they are non F1s I'll also save the seed. I left a few onions to flower at the lottie and I went a few times to find that they had been snapped over. I have 2 garlics that have a beautiful purple flower, so I'm saving that seed just to see what occurs when I plant it again. The leeks were gorgeous as they came to flower, with fabulous pointy hats. I love it.

[Flapjack]

I had a go at letting leeks flower this year too - my first attempt at saving seeds! The insects were all over them just like yours bluemoon!

Michelle's Garden: Saving leek seeds

[JennieAtkinson]

I left some in the ground too this year and they are just about to flower. Looking forward to it now!

[nick the grief]

And the best of all is when the heads look as though they are going over, put a paper bag over them, cut them off and hang up somewhere dry and the seed will drop off into the bag and you'll have about 1000 seeds for next year.

They are a lot better than ornamental Aliums cos you can't eat them

[Geordie]

just be aware that the garlic 'seed' heads are actually bulblets that you can plant but will take at least 2 years to produce garlic cloves as you would deem usable.

[Two_Sheds]

I don't collect my leek seeds (too lazy) but let them seed into the surrounding soil. I then dig up the baby leeks when pencil size, and transplant them.

[Flapjack]

They are just starting to form black seeds now! Is it weird to be this excited?

[bluemoon]

Nope, for members of this forum it is absolutely, perfectly normal. After forty odd years, I'm still awe-struck whenever anything germinates.

[nick the grief]

Nope, for members of this forum it is absolutely, perfectly normal. After forty odd years, I'm still awe-struck whenever anything germinates.

Me to BM. ANd if you save your own its even more satisfying. I've got two heads hanging up in the Greenhouse at the moment and another two to cut tomorrow/Monday ... Not a bad sacrifice 4 leeks for about 5000 seeds

[Demeter]

Bumping this up as I have a leek question. I noticed a stray leek in my garden this morning from last year. If I leave it to flower, will it produce seeds or does there have to be another flower head about the place to pollinate it? There seem to be lots of little flowers on one big head from the pics I have seen so would it be OK even without a mate? If not then I will just eat it up quick before it bolts lol

[Keith2202]

http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...seed_7174.html

Per Geordies excellent notes about seed saving you need a few pollination partners.

I only started trying to grow stuff last summer and have a few leeks still in the ground as they were planted too late to grow big.
I pulled my first one last week though and it was yummy!

If I leave some of the remainder to go to seed will that be a bad idea generating small leeks for the next generation? Or will the seeds still be fine because the leeks aren't genetically small, just didn't grow to their fullest?

Cheers

[Snadger]

Hmmm........haven't got 16 leeks that will flower at once and even if I did this would give me as much seed as Suttons have!

I don't show leeks any more but last year I was given a good show leek to do with as I wanted.
If I was to start showing it would have to be with my own developed 'strain' of leek. Anyway.........
I replanted the leek to see if it would run to seed. It didn't, so from the mushy mess at the bottom of the expired leek I dug out the two 'King pods' that were under the soil. After cleaning them up I planted them in a pot, buried like garlic. They have been in the greenhouse all winter and were just put out last week. They now look like two smallish leeks which I know will soon elongate and run to seed.
This is where the clever part starts. As has been mentioned by Geordie, you need 16 flowering leeks to give you a 'Gene pool' What hasn't been mentioned is the growing of leeks from pods/pips or 'Grass'. This is vegetative reproduction so the resultant leeks should have exactly the same characteristics as the original parent leek!
Once these two leeks have sent up a seed head and after checking that there are small bulbils forming at the top below the seed umbels, I will shave off the florets. This theoretically will induce the flower head to form pips/pods (small bulbils) which can be planted similar to onion sets, but smaller.
Sometimes the bulbils quickly form there cotyledons whilst still on the plant and this is referred to as 'grass' as thats what it looks like. Each blade of grass is also a vegetatively reproduced plant that can be planted up and grown on as a clone of the parent leek.
Once these have grown for a few generations and been crossed with each other for seed and pips I may have a decent strain to make it worth entering a leek show!

[marigold007]

Woah. Good information here! I'm going to go and count my Bandit leeks tomorrow.