Today I'm going to use a tool that I never use
in my vegetable garden but for what I'm doing today
I think it's going to be quite handy.
So this tool here is called our Broadfork and you'll see
several different variations of
this out there on the market but the basic design here
Is you've got two handles
most of the time there wooden handles and then you've got
this long bar here and then tines here sticking
out from that bar. Some companies
make more of a flatter tine, some
are more rounded tine like you see here, some times the tines
are straight, sometimes they're a little bit curved
like this one. I'm not even sure what brand or
Broadfork this is right here, doesn't have any markings
on it I stole this from dad's garden shed cause
I think it's gonna come in handy today for what were doing
and the intended use of this thing
is to aerate soils to provide
some deep aeration, if you've got compacted soils
and you want to plant something like carrots and you want
those roots or those carrots to grow down
deep nice and long
you want to provide some aeration down there so you just stick
this thing down into the soil here
and kind of pull back on it
not all the way up you don't turn the soil with it just kinda
lift up the soil and that gives you some nice
aeration there. It's a great tool, I just don't find myself
using it that much
I don't have a lot of problems with soil compaction cause we have
this sandy loam soil so great tool
I just don't use it that much but I think it's
gonna come in real handy today when we're planting these leeks.
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So I got a few successions of leeks
going in my big allium plot here.
I've got these guys, these guys are the Matejko
variety that I planted
back in October and then we've got this Tadorna
variety that we planted
back in November but these aren't
quite as far as along as those others and then
today we're going to be planting two more rows
right here
where I've got my drip tape already
buried in the soil there, so we're going to be planting two more double
rows of leeks, one row of Matejko
and one row of Tadorna.
Now I'm no leek planting expert by any means this is only my
second year growing leeks but I have found
that there really fun to grow, I really like growing them
and I've learned a few things in this
short amount of time and we're going to try to apply
that knowledge today so we can grow some bigger
better leeks. So this here is one of the
Matejko leeks that I pulled up.
In this row here just to show you and these things
have a massive root network a lot bigger than this
some of the roots kind of shook off as I dug this one up
and these things like I said are deeply rooted
and a lot of times you have to dig them up, you can't just pull them and so
on the leek, you've got a lot of leaves here but the leaves
are kind of tough and there not really edible. The edible portion
that we want is this white portion
here and that is the part that grows underneath the soil.
To get a big white part here that means
we've got to plant them deep and or throw
a lot of dirt to them as they grow. Now the big
mistake I made with this row here
is that I didn't plant them very deep I just planted them in that mini
furrow that the drip tape layer attachment creates
so they were only planted a couple of inches deep
and as you can see there we don't have
much of an edible portion on that leek there yet.
Now I have come in here and threw some dirt up on these guys recently
hoping that we can get some longer leeks out of this and I'll probably
throw even more dirt to these guys once I get
these onions out of the way here this wheat straw out of the way
I'm gonna till this little spot right here
that'll give me more dirt to through on top of these I'm kinda
at the bottom of the barrel as far as down here
in this little valley here not a whole lot of good dirt to through up
on them so I'm gonna create some more dirt here
and just keep hilling these guys in hopes that this white portion will get longer that way we've got more edible
part on this leek here, when we do get ready
harvest them and these here are about as big around
as a quarter we'll wait and let them get probably
as big around as a half dollar and then will
pull them all. Now on these Tadorna leeks right here I did
plant these a good bit deeper than
those other ones so after I laid my drip tape with my
drip tape layer attachment I took my little hoe and kind of dugout that furrow even more
so I planted these guys probably uh four inches deep
or so and I already threw a little bit of dirt
on top of these, you have to be careful when there small like this
when your throwing dirt up on them it will fold over sometimes so you have to wait till they get
big enough till where they can withstand having some dirt pulled up
on top of them without folding them over so I've got
a little dirt on these guys and as they get a little stronger
I'll put more and more dirt on top of them. So I expect these to do a little better
then that first row I showed you there cause we planted them deeper
and we've been a little bit more diligent about getting
soil pulled on top of them as they grow.
And so today we're gonna use this bad boy right here to plant the leeks even deeper.
I saw a guy of Facebook who's got a market farm up in Vermont
and he used this technique he had a little leek planter he made
kinda look like this broadfork here and he had
some massive leeks I'm talking about the white portion
on them was almost a foot long so
that's what I'm going for here nothing
is ever an original idea, we always have to learn
from other people and so I'm gonna copy that guy
and try to get leeks as big as he got.
The tines on this thing here are about 9 inches long.
So we're gonna use this to mark our holes and then we're gonna take our leek transplants
and just stick them down into those holes.
The spacing on these tines here
there about fourth and half inches apart that's a little closer
than I want to plant the leeks so I'll probably just put a plant every other hole
and that should give them plenty of room to grow like I said
they make a pretty massive root network so we wanna space them out a little bit.
So I've got my drip tape buried here and
we're gonna plant a double row of leeks you can see the little mini furrows
created by that drip tape layer so
where gonna plant a row here and we're gonna plant a row here.
So what I'm gonna do is take my
broadfork and use that mini furrow as kind of an indicator
to get everything in a straight line
and we gonna stick this thing down in the soil
as far as we can get it down there
kinda wiggle it back and forth
and that should be good.
Pull that up and then we're gonna scoot over
do it one more time
maybe rock on it a little bit
kind of a novice at using this thing here.
and then will just work our way along the row
poke all those holes on both sides of that tape
and then all we got to do it stick our little leek transplants down in those holes.
Alright, alright, alright we got those holes poked that was a little awkward at first
Never really used one of those things but I got the hang of it
I think I even might of used some muscles I haven't used in quite a while
But we got all those holes poked, let's see what it looks like.
So there we go there's a hole
8 or 9 inches deep there
about every 4 to 5 inches along
that row there and we've got them on both sides of that tape there.
and so will come in here and put a leek in every other
one of those holes and we've got our leek
transplants here these things are really easy to grow in seed trays.
And it's alright if some of the soil kinda breaks loss
from it. We gonna stick it way down in that hole right there.
Just so a little bit of that green material sticks out of the ground.
This one here has two, we'll just kinda
split those apart
skip a hole
get it down in there nice
the next one
down in there
and then will also
do the other part of this double row over here
get those in there
nice and deep
and we should have
some nice long leeks, we'll probably throw some dirt to these
as well as they grow see how, just how big of leeks we can grow here.
So planting them this way definitely takes a little more time and effort up front, but
hopefully it'll pay off come harvest time.
If you already have a broadfork, this might be a great way to
utilize a tool that you already have
just in a different way, if you don't have
a broadfork or don't use a broadfork
you could probably just use a piece of rebar or if you've got some welding skills
you could probably easily make something that's
gonna poke holes in the ground just like we did today.
If you planted leeks this way before, definitely let me know in the comments below how it turned out for you.
And if you've got any other leek planting or leek growing tips, I'd love to hear about them.
I'll put some leeks below to our leek seeds, so if you've never grown
leeks and wanna give them a try you can do that.
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