Its how I plan what to grow over winter: carrots, celery, onions, and leeks.

Everyone should grow onions, but don’t sleep on the leeks.

They’re a gentler alternative to onions and garlic, with a little bit more heft.

You want to grow and eat leeks, if you never have.

Anything made with onions could use leeks instead.

The flavor is complex, but milder than onions, and creates a silkier finish.

My fall is full of potato leek and cauliflower leek soup.

Braised leeks with bread crumbs are an unexpected but memorable side dish.

Growing your own onions gives you the opportunity to grow varieties you won’t see in a grocery store.

Growing your own gives you the chance to experiment.

Alliums love winter

Onions and leeks are perfect for overwintering.

Leeks require anywhere from 75 to 115 days to mature, but thats dependent on full sun.

Most nurseries sell onion starts, which come in bunches of 25 onions, about five inches tall.

These onions need to get into the ground now.

The sets will be buried.

If you used onion starts, the greens will still be exposed, but the roots will be buried.

Even when very young, they withstand a lot of handling as you separate the seedlings.

If your leek seedlings are five inches long, the hole for the leeks should be four inches deep.

you might plant leeks six inches apart or so, into well-worked and compost-rich soil.

The onions and leeks will grow through winter, even under snow, though not to full size.

In late winter/early spring, dig up all the leeks, which should be quite long.

Cut them down to 10 inches.

Push the dibbler into the soil, then pull it out and drop your leek seedling in.

The more leek thats underground, the longer the white section of leek will be.

This is an effective way of thinning the alliums over the winter.

Curing takes up to four weeks.

you might tell the onions are done when the outside layers of onion become papery and dry.

I use a garden hose to spray dirt off the root ball before I bring the leek inside.

Because of how they grow, leeks tend to have a lot of dirt in them.

Slice them in half the long way to clean them effectively, under running water.

I chop them into salads, or make a pesto from them, or stir fry them.