How to grow your own spinach in the garden

Because of the benefit of organic matter cover crops and green manure crops are beneficial prior to planting spinach. Keep the soil evenly moist throughout the growing season to grow spinach quickly but avoid splashing muddy water onto leaves if you can. If you’re not sure about the best place to plant out your seedlings, Mark of Vertical Veg says that spinach does just fine with only 3-4 hours of direct sunlight. This is particularly useful information for urban gardeners, as there’s no need to worry if “surrounding buildings, walls, pylons and trees… cast shade on your growing space”, says Mark.

Rinse leaves very thoroughly several times, blanch for 2 minutes in boiling, unsalted water, drain and press dry. Pack dried leaves in required serving sizes in freezer bags, press out air and seal. Thin out to one plant per module, and plant out at about 30 cm apart.

Plant the seedlings firmly, after which they should be well watered taking great care not to disturb the roots. To minimize the bitter mid-summer taste, make sure the plants get plenty of water. When you water the rest of the garden, don’t forget the chard. So, the logic is that you need to sow indoors slightly later compared to outdoor sowings to avoid any problems with cold when you plant out the indoor sown plants. Prepare the soil by digging it to 30cm / 1ft at least, spinach has deep roots and compacted soil is not good for them.

Easy to grow vegetables with children

Well grown plants in gardens are not usually badly affected except in wet weather. If you are growing winter cultivars of spinach in fall then these prefer full sun to grow well. Summer varieties prefer partial shade as otherwise the leaves can get scorched by hot sun in summer. If you are growing herbs indoors then place your spinach crops by these so you can tend to them all at the same time. Spinach is best bought fresh and stored in the fridge until you’re ready to use it. However, if you’re using it in smoothies you may be able to use frozen spinach instead.

And this heatwave has proven that growing perpetual spinach is the best way of growing spinach without bolting, because our plants did not set seed. Even if you don’t have space in your garden to grow spinach, this plant can also be grown in containers, and is a popular choice for balcony gardeners. Although salad trays as shallow as 3½ inches can yield spinach plants, they prefer deeper trays, at least 6 inches deep. When the outer leaves on your spinach plants reach six to eight inches in length they are ready to harvest.

When growing spinach in spring and summer keep the containers in semi shade. Plant as early on in autumn as possible – if the plants reach maturity before November then you can harvest outer leaves during November and December. Or harvest some plants whole in November/December and leave others in the ground until spring, to be used as cut & come again leaves. These include the likes of turnips, some salad leaves and lettuces and kale.

How gardening helps to burn calories in winter

Depending on the amount that you are going to want to eat, sowing once every two weeks should be ample to put it onto the table a couple of times a week. Spinach, like rocket, is a really easy vegetable to grow in the garden and a great one for children to get involved. Not only is it a really fast crop to grow in the garden, it also makes for delicious salads right from the garden to the kitchen table.

• Read his full article on plants that grow well in shady spaces for more tips.
• Chard’s leaves can be prepared like spinach, and its stalks like asparagus.
• Pop each transplant into the prepared hole, and don’t worry that you are planting them too deep.
• He says that this is better than pulling them out as perpetual spinach doesn’t like root disturbance.

With summer spinach you can take as much as half the leaves in one go, but winter spinach is slower to grow so take only a few leaves from each plant to extend the harvest. A cool weather crop, spinach tends to bolt and run to seed easily in summer. Spinach is an excellent source of Vitamins A and C as well as iron, so grow as much as you can! Spinach is easy to grow, and its also easy to freeze as well. As you can use spinach as a salad leaf and also as a vegetable accompaniment it is very versatile, you can use it to replace other vegetables. 15 plants should be a good number for a two adult and two children family.

Allow children to use a ruler to measure the planting distance and sowing depth. Thin to 10 cm between plants when the first leaves appear. While we try and use rainwater as much as possible on the garden and in pots, when that’s not possible, we use a space-saving expandable hose – check out our guide to expanding hoses here. My advice therefore would be to ensure the soil is moist but not waterlogged. Another excellent one which uses up a variety of vegetables you may have isfeta cheese and spinach pie with tomato relish. If you have your own tomatoes just substitute them for the canned ones in the ingredients.