How I grow and eat spinach.
Spinach grows and tastes best in cool weather. It grows in most
soils but prefers a fertile sandy loam high in organic matter.
I like to us rows instead of broadcast seeding, but would depend
how your beds are lade out, and if you pick several times or just once.
Small Spinach plants can be thinned and transplanted elsewhere.
Spinach plants do need room to grow good sized leaves.
Plant in early spring to avoid high temperatures and long
days, which cause the plants to bolt, or form flower stalks.
To help with foliar diseases, spinach should be watered in
the morning so that the foliage is dry before dark.
In the Pacific Northwest, I can grow a spring and a fall crop.
When weather gets warmer, add some mulch to preserve moisture.
Keep plants picked often, the more you pick the more it grows,
and less likely it will bolt suddenly on you.
You can get at least 2 or 3 pickings before plants bolt, or
when the leaves turn pointy they turn bitter tasting. If a few
days of hot weather hits, try shading plants with cardboard.
The timing for the fall crop is harder to get right then the
spring crop. The seeds tend to not germinant in hot weather.
Spinach here will over winter, and will start to regrow in spring,
but I found best just to plant new seeds for fresh crop.
Every other year I let some of the spring crop flower and mature
for the harvest of the seeds for my future plantings. If you want
to save your own seeds, plants would need a little extra support .
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As A child , I never much liked spinach from a can, and still
not care much for it today, but homegrown spinach- yum.
I grow a lot of spinach and save for the year. I do a quick blanch
of the leaves, then I put in freezer bags and freeze for later use.
It takes a lot of large leaves, they reduce down considerable.
When I make spinach for dinner, I heat up in saucepan. I fry up
4 or 5 pieces of cut-up bacon, with some cut-up onions with it,
and add this to the spinach- drain spinach, serve really hot.
Hope this helps.
