Growing Winter Spinach

Spinach

Hardy spinach varieties stand well in the winter and produce very large leaves just before Christmas. Winter Spinach has a stronger flavour to the summer varieties. It will need covering with a cloche or fleece from October onwards or grow undercover in the greenhouse.

Sow Seeds: August and September
Harvest: October, November and December

Where do I Sow? Raised Beds or Pots/Containers.

Varieties to Choose from:

Giant Winter – true spinach with good flavor. Stands until January if under a cloche.

How To Sow Winter Spinach Seeds

You will need:

A Raised Bed or Pot/Container,
Winter Spinach Seeds,
A Trowel or garden cane,
Multi-purpose or potting compost,
Watering can,
Plant Labels.

Instructions:

Refer to your own seed packet or take these instructions as a guide only.
Fill up the pot/container with multi-purpose compost. Add some multi-purpose compost to your raised bed and rake level.
Use a trowel or garden cane to mark straight lines (a row or trench) into the soil approx 1 inch deep.
Water the row lightly.
Open the seed packet and sow the seeds thinly if possible (but you can thin later) in the bottom of the 1 inch deep trench.
Cover the seed with a sprinkling of compost.
Water the compost well.
Label the row at both ends.
The seeds should not need watering again until they appear above the soil as seedlings. If sowing in pots, check the soil regularly as pots dry out quicker than raised beds.

How long will it take for seedlings to appear?

1 to 3 weeks depending on weather conditions.

Thinning the Seedlings
When the seedlings have been growing for about a 6 – 8 weeks, they may be growing too close together, therefore you will need to thin (pull out) a few of the seedlings to leave gaps for the seedlings to grow into bigger plants. You can thin as many times as you like, over the course of the plant growing.

If you feel a plant will need more room to grow, before you pull out the plant next to it, double check you do actually want to remove it. Sometimes crops can grow close together, you will just get a reduced size plant as it is competing with others in close proximately.

When the seedlings are young it is worth not thinning too harshly, leave most in place to help for those seedlings you may loose to pest or disease attacks. Then thin the weak seedlings to remove them from your plot to leave the strong growing plants.

Growing Tips

In mild winters, winter spinach may run to seed (bolt or flower),
In wet winters, it can suffer from damp rot or low/no germination rates.
Successional sowings can be made throughout September for harvests into the new year.
Harvest the leaves by picking them off the plant as required.