Cool Brittannia!

I have to say I felt really proud to be British this weekend. We had a spiffin street party and all the kids in the street had a day that will live in their memory forever. There were millions cheering the Queen in London, and only a hundred 'strong' shower of shite protesting Republicans among them. That's that argument settled then! Long live the monarchy and all our strange and quaint British traditions that the rest of the World envy.

And there's nowt stranger than the British pot leek grower! I've always vowed never to grow pot leeks. There are no classes in any shows for pot leeks around me and to be honest i've never quite seen the point of them....why grow dumpy little leeks when you can grow a blanch leek?

But i've actually got 5 plants growing away having acquired them at a talk given by John Soulsby in February. They were actually meant for someone else but I ended up keeping them and growing them on. When it came to planting out I realised I didn't have anywhere suitable, so I chopped some old barrels in half and filled them all with a mix of garden soil and M3, with added Q4 and seaweed meal. They've been planted a month now, covered in a wood and polythene framework and as far as I can tell they're doing ok, but having no previous point of reference I don't know if they're good, bad or mediocre!

One thing I do know ( and my thanks to former National pot leek champion Gareth Cameron for this) is you only start to blanch them with a dark cloth 8 weeks before the show. Pot leeks should be no more than 6" to the button so the last thing you want is for them to start pulling upwards like you would blanch leeks.

Am I hooked on growing pot leeks? I'll let you know in September!