The lowly leek--le roi du potager hivernal

12/10/2001
The lowly leek--le roi du potager hivernal

The glaucous, blue-green foliage of leeks gleams in just about every French potager this time of year. Judging from the number of them they plant, leeks must surely be the French National Vegetable, and they certainly reign supreme in the winter garden. French householders depend on their leek patch to contribute savor to quiches, soups, and their famous pot au feu, the mere mention of which makes most French eyes brim with tears of gastronomic passion and nostalgia. Most gardeners plant two crops of them each year: the first in early spring for summer harvest; the second in mid to late summer for winter harvest.

The French truly are masters of succession planting. That's how they manage to squeeze so much produce out of postage-stamp gardens. No sooner is the first crop ripped from the ground, than the second is in place. Or, even more precipitously, the second crop shelters in the wings of the first, to burst into dominance as soon as the older crop is yanked.

Even in the mostly colder USA, leeks can be harvested for most of the winter by keeping the ground around them well enough mulched that you can still manage to prise them from the not-too-frozen ground. And prise you must, because a correctly grown leek has soil mounded around its base to increase the length of the tender, white, blanched part of its shank.

Leeks are easy to start from seed yourself, and that is what you usually have to do, since American garden centers--unlike their French counterparts--almost never offer leek transplants. Sow the seed in flats in early February for hardening off and transplanting in early April. Plant the transplants with just a bit of their bases in the soil, and then continue to mound soil around them as they grow (see the photo of adolescent leeks above). You can repeat this process, sowing seed in early June for July transplant to yield a fall/winter crop.

I like to plant my leeks close--just a couple of inches apart--to start with. That way, I can thin out every other one to enjoy as "baby leeks," prized for their tenderness and delicate flavor.

Lots of other vegetables can provide winter harvests. One of the more unusual is salsify, also known by its Italian name of scorzonera, or vegetable marrow, or sometimes vegetable oyster. This long black root has an unusual flavor and makes a welcome change from the usual carrots and parsnips. Dig deeply and carefully to harvest it as the root is extremely long and deep, and breaks easily (see photo). Salsify is a perennial plant in the aster family. It has long linear foliage and yellow blossoms in summer. Skin salsify roots and blanch them lightly before using them in gratins. In soups, they can be dropped directly into the pot.

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