Growing Leeks + An Easy Potato Leak Crock Pot Recipe

Growing leeks is a fairly easy task and one of the favorites on our farm. My husband is generally in charge of growing produce as I focus more on flowers. Here are his tips for cultivating beautiful leeks.

You can purchase leek seedlings at your local nursery or home and garden store.

  1. Plant them in early summer using nutrient rich well drained soil. Generally a mix of garden soil and compost will do the trick.

  2. The seedlings should be planted 4”-6” apart in deep holes or trenches. You can build soil up around them to offer support and encourage long white stalks. Leeks will need depth to develop properly so if you use raised beds make sure they are not too shallow.

  3. Leeks will need 6-8 hours of sunlight and regular watering (they will not tolerate drying out).

  4. You can harvest the leeks whenever the white stalks reach a depth of 1 inch. The white stalk is the portion that will be used when cooking. However, leeks are versatile and can be harvested slightly earlier or later. Sometimes a light frost can encourage flavor. This flexibility makes harvesting easy and low stress

Easy Crock Pot Potato Leek Soup

Ingredients:

1.5-2lbs Yukon Gold Potatoes

2 garlic cloves, diced

1 Large White Onion

A handful of fresh thyme, tied with twine or 1 tablespoon of dried thyme

4-5 Leeks

64oz (two 32oz boxes) of Vegetable or Chicken Broth

Salt + Pepper to taste

Directions:

  1. Chop potatoes, garlic, leeks and onions. Add to crock pot.

  2. Tie a generous handful of fresh thyme with twine. Add to crock pot.

  3. Add 64oz of broth.

  4. Salt and Pepper (your choice how much. You can further salt/pepper it to choice before eating).

  5. Cook on low in crock pot for 8 hrs or on high for 6 hrs. Crock pots often cook differently depending on size and brand so keep that in mind when choosing your cooking time.

  6. When all the vegetables and potatoes are tender, you have a choice. You can serve in the hearty style retaining the chopped texture of the soup. Another option is to puree the soup with a hand held mixer directly in the crock pot. Salt and Pepper to taste before serving.

  7. Optional, if you choose to blend, adding a 1/4 cup of heavy cream can add a creamy texture. If you choose to serve the soup chopped and hearty, adding a dollop of sour cream to each bowl can add more flavor.

I like to serve the soup with bakery sour dough bread and a simple salad. Enjoy!

A Vibrant Palette

A large part of fall flower season is “dead heading”. To ensure a plethora of blooms, up until the first frost, cutting flowers regularly is essential. I like to find creative uses for flowers that don’t have enough life in them for a vase or bouquet.

Creating a color study like this gives me ideas for arrangements and farm stand bouquets. Also, it never hurts to add some pretty imagery on Instagram. Flowers seem to bring happiness and peace, so why not pass the day with a pop of color?

Have a wonderful Monday ;)

September on the Farm + Pear Butter Recipes

The first day of fall is September 22, 2025. If you are a fancy person, you could refer to it as the “Autumnal Equinox”. As I write this, we are only a handful of days from the end of summer. The seasons come and go, always catching me by surprise. On our farm, the heavy Dahlias show evidence of the first inklings of fall. They bow under the weight of billowy blooms, almost in anticipation of being cut for bouquets.

Not long after that, we see unripe green apples fall to the ground. This is a natural process where the apple trees release the weight of weak fruit from their branches all on their own, making room for healthier apples. Our chickens love to hover, hoping for a fresh bite before we gather them up for the compost. Cosmo and Nasturtium are in abundance in September while the roses slow down and prepare to rest. The garden beds themselves are a mess of dried up leaves and overgrown grass as I tend to become lazy about weeding. I shield the garden borders from my eyes while I obsessively spray Final Stop on our fruit trees in an attempt to naturally stave off caterpillars, aphids and pests of all kinds.

Fall on the farm also means preserving jams, jellies and fruit butters. The first fruit to be preserved are the Italian Plums, usually at the end of August or early September. The apples don’t offer anything until October but second in line…are the pears.

We inherited two types of pear varieties when we moved into our house, Red Bartlett and D’Anjou. We harvest the Bartletts early since our trees are young with flimsy branches. I am always nervous about ripening pears on the counter. However after several experiments, it does seem to be the finest way to attain sweet fruit. The D’Anjous are slower to ripen (on the tree and on the counter) as well as less beautiful to the eye. Which is why they are perfect for making preserves and butters! When I started preserving last year, I was hooked immediately. I devoured recipes, history and techniques to create beautiful looking and good tasting jams/jellies. I found the following definitions extremely helpful:

  • Jam : A jam is all about texture. The fruit is crushed and reduced down with 45-60 parts sugar. While it will thicken to be spread, it will retain the shape and character of the original fruit. This is why raspberry jam still has seeds in it.

  • Jelly : While making jelly you shift out all the fruit texture as you prepare it. You retain the flavor of the fruit but the remnants of the fruit is absent. It is usually a clear texture.

  • Butters : Fruit is cooked longer to attain a thick texture. The butter ends up opaque like smooth apple sauce and is excellent on toast. It is the most user friendly of them all.

Pear butter is one of the easier recipes to start with. You can store your butters in the fridge for up to a month or you can preserve them following canning instructions. This recipe includes instructions on how to preserve the butters in jars. Below I’ve included several more that I have tried and really enjoyed. Truly, pear butter is almost impossible to get wrong. As long as it has a sweetener, a spice and pears in it, you will enjoy it.

SLOW COOKER PEAR BUTTER

SALTED CARAMEL PEAR BUTTER

STAR ANISE PEAR BUTTER

I hope everyone has a lovely first day of fall on September 23rd…do something cozy or eccentric. ‘Tis the season :)

-Jenni