never had a problem. suggest you try cooler conditions. they don't need to be babied AT ALL. my rule of thumb is to plant ten or twelve seeds in each cell of a six pack unit. just keep them well watered and you can separate them when you transplant to final location. my mother took great pains to plant one per cell, put them under grow lights, and generally pamper them and her final product was not as healthy or happy as my crowded and ignored starts.

Seems to be some confusion over the term "permanent" bed. As I've used it in the past, it merely means that the bed is dedicated to alliums. Onions, garlic, whatever get grown in the same bed over and over again. The exact opposite of rotation planting. The idea of such permanent beds goes back to the 19th century, when commercial onion breeders discovered they actually get better productivity from using the same beds over and over again. The whole idea of crop rotation, as it turns out, has been greatly overplayed in almost all cases. There are only two reasons to rotate crops: Depletion of nutrients and soil-borne disease. In the average home garden, neither of these problems can be fixed by rotating crops. There just isn't enough room. However, assuming you replace the nutrients (that's what compost and other amendments are all about, people), and in the absence of a heavy infestation of a soil-borne disease, there is no reason not to grow onions, or garlic, or, to put a point on it, leeks, in the same bed over and over again.

Hi there, I have LOTS of Jerusalem artichoke. They are the round tuber type. Would be interested in a trade for flax and mullein seed. Send me an email if you are interested. mjr r

I would start over. I checked my notes on Todorna leek seed, stored 3 years in freezer. It was up good within a week. One aspect if you have leek (or onion) seeds stored using other methods is that germination may be very poor after 9 months storage.