Make like a leek

"Faire le poireau"  is French slang for hanging around, presumably because you can leave leeks in the ground until you need them.

I've left this one, the last of last year's crop, hanging around just because I like to see  how vegetables flower and set  seed. This year's crop is already growing behind it but I sowed those afresh and planted them out. I don't know if this mature one will produce viable seed - a lot depends on the genetics.

However, last year I left a kalette plant to flower and set seed with the result that  several babies have germinated in the ground below. Which is just as well because the rest of my Brassica sowings have almost completety failed, possibly because the seeds I used were too old.

Searching for advice on the viability of vegetable seeds, which, according to species, is highly variable (a 2000 year old date palm stone holds the oldest proven record), I came across a charming poem on the subject written by Laurence D. Hills the. founder of the Henry Doubleday Foundation and a renowned early champion of organic gardening techniques.


It's here if anyone else is interested.