What to do with the harvest: can leeks be left in the ground for the winter and how best to prepare them for wintering

Leek - the crop is relatively new for Russian gardeners, so questions often arise about its cultivation. One of them is whether leeks can be left in the ground for the winter. We will talk about the risks of overwintering leeks under the snow and describe the process of preparing them for storage.

Is it possible to leave leeks in the ground for the winter?

You can and even need to leave leeks in the garden in the following cases:

1. You need to collect the seeds of your favorite variety yourself. The crop is biennial; in the first year, the onion increases its vegetative mass, and in the second it produces shoots with seeds.
2. The desire to collect fresh, juicy greens from your plot in early spring. During storage In a cellar or basement, leeks lose most of their taste.
3. There is no way to store the harvest harvested in the fall.

You should not leave leeks in the garden before winter:

• if you live in climatic conditions with frosty winters and little snow, the onions will freeze;
• if early varieties unsuitable for wintering under snow or non-frost-resistant mid-season varieties were planted.

Frost resistance of leek

Well-rooted plants of mid-season (Cazimir, Consumer, Elephant) and late (Alligator, Bandit, Autumn Giant) varieties with a rich vegetative mass are able to tolerate temperatures of -4...-6°C.

Frost-resistant varieties (for example, late-ripening Karantansky) can withstand down to -15°C and overwinter in the ground.But without sufficient snow cover in the middle zone, as well as in severe frosts, even this onion will die.

There are agricultural techniques that will help the crop to overwinter in the garden.

How to prepare leeks for wintering:

1. Hill up the plant stems 8-10 cm with garden soil or peat.
2. In areas with cold climates, mulch, cover with spruce branches or other material that retains snow cover.
3. Cover with snow as soon as it falls. This is especially true during harsh winters. 1 cm of snow cover protects against 1°C frost.
4. Install arcs over the bed and cover them on top with non-woven material. In winter, throw snow inside this “winter greenhouse”.

Leek harvest time

Early varieties begin to be dug up from the end of July for preparing salads and hot dishes.

Medium and late ripening varieties are planted for storage. They are harvested as late as possible - as close to frost as possible. In the central part of Russia - in October. In the southern regions, late onions are harvested depending on the weather - until December.

In zones with a cold climate (middle zone, northern regions, Siberia), late varieties may not have time to ripen before harvesting - their growing season is 200 days. In such cases, the plants are left in the ground until winter.

Important! Dig up onions in dry weather. Do this carefully so as not to damage the stem, otherwise it will not be stored for long.

Harvest storage conditions

Leeks are picky about conditions. For storage, it needs low temperature (from 0 to +2°C) and humidity 80-85%. Only in this case will it preserve the juiciness of the leaves, the elasticity of the stem and the maximum supply of vitamins and microelements.

Shelf life

The timing depends on the conditions that will be created to preserve fresh onion stems.

For 6-7 months from the date of harvest, leeks are stored in the cellar of a private house. The plants are dug up, the green leaves are cut off by a third, and the roots are shortened to 4-5 cm.

Prepare a box with wet sand and place onion stems vertically in it, sprinkling them with substrate between the rows. The higher the onion is covered with sand, the better it will be stored, the stems will remain white and juicy.

Important! After you take the stems out of the box for food, do not leave empty space in the rows, add more moistened sand or compact the leeks.

The harvest is also stored on an insulated balcony. The technology is the same, but the box is additionally covered with black non-woven material. The shelf life will depend on weather conditions and temperature fluctuations. At temperatures from -5 to +5°C, leeks will last up to 5 months. Warming the air above +10°C will cause the plants to wither and lose their taste.

The stems are periodically checked for rot or drying out.

Leeks will last 4-5 months in the refrigerator at +2°C. To do this, it is prepared: the stems are cleaned, the roots and leaves are trimmed, then it is packaged in plastic film with micro-perforation. This will create an optimal microenvironment for the plants in terms of humidity and will not allow them to dry out.

If there is a possibility and space in the freezer, the stems cut into small pieces are frozen, placed in bags or containers. The shelf life of such a product is about a year.

This is interesting:

The technology of planting and growing onions in a bag without soil is a super way!

How to properly store potatoes without a cellar in the ground until spring.

Tips and tricks

We offer useful recommendations for gardeners based on personal experience:

1. The most unpretentious variety and tolerates wintering well in the soil is the Karantansky variety, proven over the years.
2. On a farm in the Pskov region, the frost-resistant variety Bandit grow direct sowing of seeds into the ground at the end of July. Before winter it is earthed up, and already in June of next year it produces a harvest.
3. In the southern regions, leeks collected from the garden are transferred to an empty greenhouse: they make a trench, lay the stems in it and cover it more than half with soil. This way it is stored until spring. In case of severe cold, the onion is additionally covered with thick cloth.
4. If the winter is mild, during the thaw, several leek stems are dug up from the garden bed for food. It is enough to water the ground around it with hot water.
5. Plants that have successfully overwintered in the spring are eaten before the leek shoots, otherwise the stem will become stiff.

Conclusion

For successful wintering of leeks in open ground, preference is given to mid-season and late frost-resistant varieties. Plants that are hilled up and protected from frost are left in the garden bed before winter. If this is not possible, leek stems are stored at home after harvesting.