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Growing spinach
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Some rather pathetic English spinach seedlings
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We've always had trouble growing spinach. Finally in 2001 we had our
first success.
English spinach is a wonderful leafy vegetable that can only really be
grown here in south east Queensland during winter. Its way too hot any
other time of the year. When spinach gets too hot it'll bolt to seed and
taste bitter. But spinach is also temperamental in many other ways.
Growing conditions
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Spinach is a very cool climate plant. It is very difficult growing
it even in our subtropical winter because it also likes damp conditions.
Our first ever truly successful sowing was done in late autumn, so
the seedlings grew through winter.
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They prefer partial to full sun. But can't tolerate warm weather.
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Spinach loves an organically rich soil and well drained beds.
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Spinach is one of the lucky vegetables that you can stick anywhere
in your 4 bed rotation system. Wherever
you've got the space you can plant a row or two (if your growing conditions
are right).
Garden care
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We first tried growing spinach using seedlings. Bad move. Never try
growing spinach from store bought seedlings. Spinach hates being transplanted
and will quickly go to bolt. Always directly sow seed where you plan
to grow your spinach.
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The next lesson about spinach is always sow your seed in an organically
rich soil. When we did get around to sowing seed the soil was very
clayey and poor in organic matter. Spinach loves an organically rich,
free draining soil. Otherwise you'll get poor, stunted growth like
we did.
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Feed them fortnightly with liquid manure to encourage leaf growth.
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And the final lesson which you can learn from our mistakes is to
always use fresh seed. After getting all of the above right we used
the same packet of seed. Our spinach seedlings were as pitiful as
ever.
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If all else fails you can always grow an English spinach substitute
like New Zealand spinach (not a true spinach), silverbeet (swiss chard)
or pak choy.
Harvest time
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If you're lucky enough to have the right climate and your spinach
goes great, then around it's 8th to 10th week you can harvest.
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It's usually easier to harvest the whole spinach plant rather than
leaf by leaf, although you can do this if you don't need much.
Last Updated
17 November, 2008
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