Spinach For Family & Friends

Hello Gardening Enthusiasts!

If you have a taste for spinach, and can think of numerous ways of enjoying it, please read on!

Spinach is a lovely spring/winter vegetable and can be grown in the garden or in pots. Great for balcony gardens or in the sunroom, it can be cultivated all winter and into spring.

Acquire your spinach seeds fresh, as the seeds do not store well.

Make sure the soil is rich with organic nutrients and a pH of 6 to 7. Spinach loves rich loamy soil. When planting seeds in a pot, place seed ¾” into the soil and space them 2” apart. Keep the soil around the seeds moist and wait 10 days for germination. Nurture your seedlings along at a temperature of 40 to 70 degrees. Thin out extra plants and put them somewhere else to grow; perhaps another pot which has been prepared to host the extra plants.

Harvest your baby spinach leaves from the outside when they are large enough to eat (3 to 4”). This helps the center continue producing more leaves. Keep the leaves small. Small leaves are tender. Your spinach will continue producing leaves until spring. Happy gardening!

Tip: For growing in a pot, make sure the pot is wide enough for the root system. An 18” bowl shaped pot will allow depth for the tap root and still be wide enough at the top for feeder roots to spread.

Tip: For extra rich soil, use manure, or mushroom compost. If you have liquid fish fertilizer, that works too. (Nitrogen promotes the growth of leaves.)