Growing Spinach
Spinach grows well in loamy and even sandy soil and thrives in cooler weather so don’t try planting in the middle of the summer – unless of course you live in a location that stays relatively cool all year. Spinach is rather hardy when it comes to cold weather and in some locations you may be able to over-winter a crop planted in the fall. Here in Pennsylvania (eastern US, Zone 6) I have had success in planting spinach in August or September and having it survive the winter. It doesn’t always work for me but 80% of the time it does. Here is what my spinach looked like a couple weeks ago that was planted last September.
This spinach provided a harvest in October thru the beginning of December and then came back to life in late March and began producing again. I partially covered it with shredded leaves when it started going dormant in December and then used a leaf vacuum to pull the leaves off in March and gave it a little organic fertilizer. This technique of over-wintering should succeed if your nights during the winter don’t go much below the teens. If you have many nights in single digits or below zero, or you are buried in snow much of the winter this may not work for you.
To extend the season I plant another crop of spinach in early April. I am just starting to harvest this crop now and it should last until the middle or latter part of June. Here is what my new spring looked like the same time the previous picture was taken of my over-winter crop a couple weeks ago (that's arugula at the top of the picture). Notice the spacing, It's important to thin.
You can see how the staggering of my spinach crop works out well so I’m not overwhelmed with a certain vegetable all at once but can extend the period in which I’m picking fresh spinach from the garden. The cycle will begin again at the end of the summer.
The biggest problem with spinach is leaf miners. Leaf miners can destroy a spinach crop.
Leaf miners in my location come from small flies that lay their eggs on the underside of the spinach leaf. See the little white eggs here.
Within a few days the eggs hatch and the fly larvae or miner begin eating the leaf from the inside. One of the advantage of over-wintering is you get an early start before these flies start laying their eggs. But eventually this becomes a problem for me. This may be a lot for more casual gardeners but the most effective prevention for me is to simply go out every night or two and clean the eggs off the leaves with my thumb before they have a chance to hatch. I guess it depends how bad you want fresh spinach. This also is a big problem with red beets but I mainly grow them for the beet and not the leaf.
Hope this helps!
I am a passionate about agriculture, this year I will plant cassava, I like to plant everything that is vegetables, excellent post dear friend @ garden-to-eat, thank you dear friend for all this information
No problem.
Great post, very useful information
Thanks I'm happy to help
I'm going to try and overwinter some crops this fall as well. I wasn't thinking of spinach but your post is making me think. I was thinking of doing garlic which I've read will be fine in the winter. I'm further south than you in North Carolina, so hopefully it will work out.
You should be fine down there so give it a try. Garlic really needs to be planted in the fall for a harvest the next summer - even north of me.
Excellent post dear friend @ garden-to-eat very interesting, if your intention is to have spinach all year, use the variety of specimen that corresponds to the summer, it is much more resistant for the summer and in winter you can sow the winter giants, That way you should not have any problems.
Thank you very much for sharing
I did try new zealand one summer but we did not like it so I just stick with traditional spinach and grow in the cool season. I have so much other stuff coming in during the summer I don't miss it that much. And much to cold here to grow anything in winter.
ouch but atleast you dont get slugs!
We get slugs. They are doing a job on my strawberries. Not hurting the spinach though.
I haven't tried over wintering spinach here in northern NY but my kale came back amazingly this year. I actually have a garden of volunteers this year, lettuce, radish, mustard, tomatoes, kale, sunflowers and dill just to name a few. I am seriously thinking of putting in seeds this fall for many of my plants and see what next spring brings. Would make spring work much easier. :)
Interesting. Planting your garden in the fall. Probably would work well for the cool weather crops. Good luck.
i used neem leaves soaked in water for those pesky leaf miners! :) your crops are looking great!
Can we grow unlimited supply of spinach with one plant only?
One plant or one planting? I grow two crops in the spring usually with 15 or 20 plants and that provides spinach for around 2 or 3 months. If you read my post you see that my first crop is usually over-wintered and was planted the previous fall.