Comparing Perennial Leeks with Regular Leeks

Perennial Leeks

Perennial leeks are rare and difficult to find in Australia for some reason, yet they are simple to grow and one of the best and most productive vegetables to grow for home gardeners.  I would hate to be without them again, if we ever lost them in a bushfire or something I would be devastated.  I have had a lot of questions about the perennial leeks from different people, so thought it best that I write another post and answer some of them.

Perennial leeks - note the baby leeks growing from their bases

 What are they, how to grow perennial leeks?

I have some growing notes here.  I will tell you a few things now that were not covered in my growing notes page.

Perennial leeks are an amazing plant, they are hardy, productive and delicious.  People often ask when to plant perennial leeks, we plant and divide perennial leeks all year.  When we harvest a leek for dinner I then plant the small baby leeks that are growing from the large ones base.  It is only over the hotter summers when the plants are dormant that we do not harvest leeks, even then I occasionally dig up the bulbs and plant them out in other places.  Even when we lived near Canberra we could divide and plant them all year, the frost and the heat does not seem to be too much of an issue with them.

Summers here are extremely hot and dry and the leeks tend to die down to bulbs, in cooler climates or even cooler years they grow all year.  They flower here but generally nothing comes of it.  One year after floods we had them set viable seed which I think was a cross between the leeks and elephant garlic, that year the flower heads also grew small leek bulbs in the same way that tree onions grow small onions on the flower stalk.  These things have only happened that once and I have not been able to convince them to flower since.

Some people ask me how they compare with other types of leek.  When I wrote my first perennial leek post I had never grown or eaten any other varieties of leek to be able to compare, since then I have grown and eaten some regular leeks so can compare them.  I considered buying some leek seeds to grow, but I have grown onion seed and find them fiddly so did not want to do that if I did not have to.  The leeks in the supermarket were so much larger, both longer and fatter than the perennial leeks, so we bought some for dinner a few times just to see if they were any better.  After cutting off the roots with a few mm of shank I put them in a jar with a little water and they sprouted.  We used to do that with the perennial leeks to build up numbers the first year that we had them so figured it should work with any leek.  It worked fine and the regular leeks grew well.  I then grew the two types of leek, perennial and store bought, in adjacent beds to see how they compared. 

Perennial leeks - I need to take a few more pictures for this post

Comparing Perennial Leeks with Regular Leeks

Below is roughly how they fared compared with each other.  Please try to keep in mind I only grew them over one year, I had an unknown commercial supermarket strain (or several unknown strains), and had small numbers of store bought leeks so this comparison is far from scientific:

The store bought leeks taste pretty much the same as the perennial leeks, no noticeable difference there.  Some people who I have sold perennial leeks to have claimed that the perennial leeks are sweeter or tastier, but I am not convinced that I could tell any difference.  Both types of leek cooked the same, neither one was tough or bitter or anything like that.

While the store bought leeks were larger, the perennial leeks grew faster and sent up a lot of babies and we ended up with a greater harvest of perennial leeks compared to store bought leeks on the same area of land.  So from a yield per area of garden the perennial leeks came out on top by a long way.  When harvesting perennial leeks there are always baby leeks that you can use as replacements, which maximises the use of space.

The perennial leeks reproduce slowly throughout the year, then around November they explode in numbers.  From one well grown plant I ended up with 128 leeks in 12 months.  During this time I would have been able to eat leeks as well as increase their number had I wished.  The store bought leeks did not flower in the 12 months, but I assume had I left them in for another 6 months or so they would have flowered and produced hundreds if not thousands of seeds.  I guess there is a trade off here, the store bought leeks would have reproduced more than the perennial leeks if they had more time, but we would not have eaten leek during that long time.  The time it would take to go from a seed to an edible leek is also a lot longer than to go from a baby perennial leek to an edible sized leek.

When saving leek seed it is advisable to grow out at a minimum of 80 plants to prevent problems with inbreeding depression, you would then rouge out any plants with undesirable characteristics (minimum numbers based on info from http://www.seedalliance.org/uploads/publications/Seed_Saving_Guide.pdf).  That is a lot of space to tie up each year just to produce leek seed for the following season.  Leek seed is only viable for a year or two, so you would end up having to tie up that much space all the time just to produce leek seed, you would then have to allocate another bed to produce leeks to eat.  Of course you could just buy leek seed each year, but then you may as well just buy leek from the supermarket to eat and use your vegetable plot for growing something else.  When growing perennial leeks you can grow a single plant if you wanted to and build up numbers from that, there will be no inbreeding, and rouging out is not needed as every baby it produces will be genetically identical to the parent (this is not exactly true as sometimes mutations pop up, but that is an in-depth topic that is best not covered here).  There is also no problem with perennial leek about having to isolate plants to prevent them crossing with the neighbours leeks which can be an issue if you live in town.  So from a sustainability point of view the perennial leeks end up as the better option.

Regular leeks can be grown as perennials, harvested close to the ground and allowed to regrow.  Perennial leeks are superior here as they can be grown and harvested the same way but continually reproduce and allow you to build up numbers if you wish.

Regular leeks are a bit larger, but the ones I grew were nowhere near as large as they originally were in the store, perennial leeks are a bit smaller.  I assume that if I grew the perennial leeks better they would be a bit larger, but I also think that regular leeks will always be a bit larger than perennial leeks.  If you do not divide them, the perennial leeks end up as a clump of hundreds of plants that are as thin as chives.  This can be a down side of perennial leeks, it can also be easily avoided by dividing some of them occasionally.

One of the store bought leeks grew with a red stem and looked nice, the perennial leeks were just green.  Occasionally a variegated perennial leek turns up, but other than that they are just green.  I like the look of the variegated perennial leeks myself but they only seem to turn up occasionally.  At the end of the day these are a food plant, looks are secondary.

To the best of my knowledge there is only one or two varieties of perennial leek in Australia whereas there are a whole lot more varieties of seed grown leek.  Some types of seed grown leeks are suited to warm climates and others are suited to cool climates.  Some grow long and thin whereas others grow short and fat, apparently each of these types is better suited to different climates.  I have sent perennial leeks to a few parts of the country and so far am yet to find a climate in which they are not productive.  This lack of choice with varieties is not an issue as I am happy with these perennial leeks, if they were not fantastic then this lack of choice would matter a whole lot more.

From what I have been told perennial leek will cross pollinate with any variety of regular leek and they say that the offspring are less desirable than either parent, so if you grow both it is best to remove the flower stalk from the perennial leek to prevent problems.  I have never let regular leeks flower so can not say too much about the subject.  Perhaps if you were to let a regular leek flower next to a flowering perennial leek you could grow the resultant seed and perhaps get a new type of perennial leek!

Perennial leek bulbs - they only die down to bulbs some years if it is too hot or dry

My conclusion

Over all the perennial leeks were a lot easier to grow, they were producers of food throughout the year, they were producers of huge amounts of food for a small area, and I know that if I forget about them for a year (or ten) that they will still be there waiting for me.

After growing the two types of leeks and comparing them I dont think I can be bothered growing regular leeks again and will stick with the perennial leeks.  I understand that there are many varieties of regular leeks and someone should preserve them and prevent them from going extinct, but that someone should not be me at this point in time.  I am happy with perennial leeks and at this stage want to spend my energy saving seed of other things.

I do have perennial leeks for sale as well as some seeds, herbs and other perennial vegetables on my For Sale page.  I am not keen on posting outside of Australia unless you have already contacted your countrys quarantine and are confident that they will be allowed through.  That being said I am happy to try my best to answer any questions about perennial leeks from people even if they are overseas.

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Yacon the worlds most civilised vegetable

Yacon (Smallanthus sonchifolius formerly known as Polymnia sonchifolia) is a perennial root vegetable from South America.  

If you have never eaten yacon then you are missing out on something truly special. 

When Tracey asked our five year old to describe yacon he said: "They taste like apple. They look like a tube and grow underground like a potato. The leaves feel like a soft blanket."  To be honest I think that is as good a description as any.

How I first grew yacon

I read about yacon years ago on the Lost crops site and eventually tracked down a small rhizome to buy over the internet.  I spent a bit of money to get yacon and had no idea if it would grow for me or even if I would like it.  You plant yacon in spring, then you wait as it grows happily, if you have frosts it is best to let it die down over winter before harvest.  After planting it I waited patiently as it grew, still never having tasted it, all the while tempted to dig up a small root to try but trying to be patient so the plant could do its thing properly.  The yacon grew about waist high and looked nice, towards the end of the growing season it dropped a few leaves and looked a bit shabby.  The yacon then grows a small yellow sunflower like flower some years, unfortunately they require more than one clone in order to set viable seed and as far as I am aware there is only one yacon clone in Australia.

Yacon flowers

Then winter came, I was very excited, but the frosts did not kill off the tops so I waited until we had a hard frost as frost apparently makes the roots sweeter.  We then had a hard frost, and the yacon looked a little burned but overall was not too bothered, even though it does not look like it yacon is a pretty hardy plant.  After a few hard frosts the tops eventually succumbed to the cold.  I carefully dug up the large and brittle tubers and tried one, I liked it but it was nothing special.  The yield was amazing, from the one tiny rhizome that I initially planted I ended up with a dozen much larger rhizomes and a bucket full of large tubers, but if the taste was not great I did not want to use the space on them regardless of the yield.  Everything I had read said that if you leave yacon for a few weeks after digging it up it gets sweeter, so I waited for a few weeks for the tubers to sweeten, I then tried another one, I loved it!  

I wish that yacon was more readily available in Australia, even if the plants were more available for people to grow at home it would be great, this is why I started to sell plants.  I am rather fond of perennial vegetables, once you plant them you pretty much will have them forever.

Yacon, note the light brown edible tuber and the purple propagative rhizome

How to grow yacon

I have included some growing notes here that describes things a bit more clearly.  Yacon are interesting plants to grow, they pretty much look after themselves, they are hugely productive, and they are perennial.  From what I have read it can grow and be harvested all year in frost free places, apparently without frost you just wait an extra couple of days after harvest to let it sweeten before eating it.

I have never heard of anyone who has grown yacon complain of any pest or disease that affects the plants.  Yacon seems not overly picky about soil conditions, planted in rich moist soil it gives the highest yields, but it still gives a decent yield on poor soil with minimal water.  Yacon prefers full sun but will also provide a decent yield in part shade, it is well suited to growing under trees to utilise an otherwise wasted space.  One thing that yacon does not like is rocks and stones in the soil, the tubers will still grow and give a large and delicious yield but they will be misshapen due the pressure exerted upon them from the stones etc in the soil.

Unlike jerusalem artichokes to which yacon is related, yacon poses no weed threat, it grows well yet it remains civilised by not taking over the vegetable garden, in fact other plants seem to grow better when yacon is grown near them.  Yacon exudes inulin and other sugars from its roots which attracts and feeds earth worms as well as a host of other beneficial soil life.  I am told that yacon is readily colonised by mycorrhizae which promote plant growth in a number of ways.

Purple Yacon rhizomes ready to be divided and planted

Yacon is edible, delicious and healthy
Another civilised thing about yacon is that every part is edible as well as being good for you.  Some other vegetables have some parts you can eat and others you can not, or some things which must be eaten cooked as they are toxic if raw, or irritating hairs or spines that must be dealt with, all parts of yacon can be eaten either raw or cooked.  The large sweet crunchy tubers are the part that we like the best, we do not tend to eat any other parts.  Mostly we eat the tubers raw, some people just dig them up and eat them as is but I peel them as the skin can taste a little like resin.  I find that if I slice them thin they taste the best.

Yacon is crunchy and sweet, after cooking it retains its crunch but tends to take on the flavour of whatever it is cooked with.  It can be used in the place of water chestnuts in recipes.  Even though yacon is very sweet the sugars are not digested by people which makes it fine to be eaten by diabetics.  Yacon is high in inulin (which is different to insulin), inulin is a natural prebiotic which feeds the good bacteria in your body and helps to exclude the bad bacteria.  This means that as well as tasting great yacon is good for you.

Once harvested yacon tubers seem to last anywhere from a few months to a year depending on climate in which they are stored.  One year we had far too many yacon tubers so decided to freeze some of them.  Once frozen they last seemingly forever.  To eat them it is important not to thaw them as they go black and slimy looking.  I remove the tubers from the freezer, peel them with a vegetable peeler, slice them and eat them.  When frozen yacon tubers are easy to peel and easy to slice.  When frozen yacon tastes different to when it is raw, it is difficult to describe but it kind of tastes like frozen banana custard.  My kids seem to like frozen yacon even more than they like raw yacon.

Another remarkably civilised thing about yacon is that the part that you eat is different to the part that you plant to grow a crop for next season.  Unlike other vegetable crops where you have to decide how much to eat and how much to save to replant or you have to decide how many plants to let go to seed, you eat all of the yacon tubers and plant all of the propagative rhizomes.  As yacon is propagated by division and does not produce seed you do not have to worry about caging or separating to keep seed pure or growing enough plants to avoid inbreeding depression.  Growing yacon by divisions means you never have to worry about the neighbours growing GM crops that will cross pollinate and ruin your plants, the yacon that we grow and eat today is genetically the same as the yacon plants that the Incas domesticated and grew.

Small yacon plant almost ready to be harvested after frost

Harvesting Yacon

The different parts of yacon are easy to tell apart as the tubers are large and brown and look like sweet potato, the propogative rhizome is purplish and small and has growing points, you will see these when you harvest yacon.

I look forward to yacon harvest each year, not only because it means that in a few weeks I will be eating sweet yacon, but also because of the unmistakable yacon smell.  It is a smell that cant be described, a smell that says that winter is here, a smell that helps keep me connected to the land and the seasons, a smell I miss over the rest of the year.  When we harvest yacon I carefully dig/pull up a plant and shake it gently.  The edible tubers fall off in a civilized pile and what is left in my hand is for dividing and replanting.

Yacon leaf,  it "feels like a soft blanket"

The leaves are large and fuzzy, as Igloo says they "feel like a soft blanket".  I have heard that in Peru the leaves are used to wrap food before it is cooked, kind of like a banana leaf or a grape leaf, but I am yet to try this myself.  A herbal tea can be made from the leaves which helps to even out blood sugar.  The leaves can be picked and used straight away, or they can be left somewhere out of the sun to dry and then used to make the herbal tea later.  Unlike many herbal claims this claim that yacon leaves lower blood sugar levels seems to have been tested and proven to be true.  I have only made tea from the leaves once and found the taste to be a little odd, kind of like peppermint mixed with something.  I didnt really like it, but I didnt hate it, I am glad to say that the taste was not very strong.  It would probably taste nice if you mixed it with something that tastes better or something that has a strong taste that would overpower the yacon.


Where to buy yacon plants in Australia

As I already mentioned, if you have not eaten yacon you are missing out on something really special.  The chances are that you will never see yacon in the supermarket, so if you plan to try some or if you want your children to try some you must grow your own.  I do sell yacon rhizomes (a bit larger than the ones in the pictures above) here.


Ecclesiastes 3:1-2  There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens; a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot,

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