Leave some of the leeks to flower as the bees love them. I put some on the compost heap and the bees were still on the flowers a week later!

That one on the left of the first pic looks as if its trying to be garlic! Very unusual. Can't ever remember seeing a leek that was so bulbous at the base either.

I was amazed when we lifted them Steragram I've never seen anything like it before!

I don't know what variety these are as they were bought as small leeks from a nursery. Our own seed grown haven't done this.

Might be worth having a word with the nursery to find out what variety they are.

It's a throw back from cross pollination when selfed. As said above, they may have been near garlic.

I'm amazed DrBob - never suspected it might really be a cross! What does selfed mean?

When plants are pollinated only the pollen from the male flower you require to make the hybrid must be used. Often we have saved seeds from plants to get the same results the next year only to get plants of different height and size in flower. With hybrids, don't save seeds.

So are you saying selfed means pollinated by the same variety?

With research to produce say a marrow which will produce marrows of the same size, flavour etc. the female flower is pollinated by a male flower then covered with muslin to stop any other pollen getting through, if you are pollinating onions and garlic in the same place a mistake can be made.

selfed means pollen from the same plant on to its own stigma. no other plants involved. still would get variation as it depends on which chromosomes are in the pollen mix. but flowers are in the second year not in the first year.

the bulbils are a response to the weird weather, a stress response.

Ah. Thank you. Never knew there was a special word for it. Pansies do this all by themselves in a bad summer, producing buds that never open - sex in secret!

They are still edible which is what interests me...

I have never known this. Wonder if they smell of Garlic?

Nope no garlic smell...

Both Leeks and Elephant Garlic are varieties of the same species, Allium ampeloprasum. I'm not too surprised if a Leek would try to bulb up under the right weather conditions, especially if it had some genes added from Elephant Garlic, say for disease or pest resistance. Garlic smell may not appear, since it is weak in Elephant Garlic, anyway. True Garlic is a different species from Leeks, and is unlikely to cross with them.

That is interesting TugB. The ones I've already cooked tasted fine and the rest a residing in the freezer.

The taste is probably one of the first things they bred for, but they probably weren't thinking about the consequences of weird weather conditions! Taste and nutrition are what most of us grow veggies for, anyway, and we don't care if they are homely children. : )

Nope I don't care what our veg look like so long as they taste okay