If you’re growing spinach in your garden, you already know it’s a really versatile vegetable with many uses at the dinner table. And on top of that, it’s among the healthiest vegetables to eat! Spinach thrives in cooler weather, so plant some to keep gardening and eating fresh produce into the cooler months. One of the great things about growing spinach is that it doesn’t require much time to reach harvest. In fact, you can eat the leaves at any point, so it’s ready to be harvested whenever you want a spinach dish.

Spinach History

Wild spinach is believed to come from the Middle East and southwest Asia. It was first grown as a crop in Persia, before spreading east and west to China and the Mediterranean region. It was made popular throughout Europe by the French in the 14th century. It was also popular in England and Germany at this time. Many years later, in the 19th century, it made the trip across the Atlantic to be cultivated by Americans.

Although best well-known for its iron content, spinach has many other good vitamins and minerals. It’s got a lot of Vitamins A, C, and K, plus folate (Vitamin B), so it’s one of the healthiest vegetables to eat.

Growing Spinach

As usual, the first thing to prepare is the soil. Spinach doesn’t like acidity, so make sure your soil has a pH of about 6.5. Remember that 7.0 is neutral, less than 7 is acidic, and above 7 is basic. Besides acidity, make sure that your soil has a high level of nitrogen. Spinach likes a loamy soil, so make sure you have a good mixture that’s not predominantly clay or mostly sand. In addition, to make the best loam, make sure you have loaded it with lots of compost before planting. Once your soil is prepared, ensure the temperature is right. Spinach can grow at much cooler temperatures than many other vegetables, so 50 degrees F is when you can get started.

Moving on to seeds, it’s best to use relatively fresh ones, although spinach seeds can store up to 3 years before planting. When sowing your spinach seeds, put them about 1/2″ deep into the ground, and space them at 4-6″ linearly, with 12″ between rows. There’s a reason for keeping them spread out like this, and that’s so that thinning is kept to a minimum. Spinach roots are very fragile as seedlings, so having to transplant or disturb seedlings too close together can do a lot of damage to them. So it’s best to give them room to grow. Just think of it as trading space for time or effort.

Spinach requires not less than 3/4 inch of rain per week. So be ready to water if you don’t receive enough rainfall.

Issues

The first problem you should be aware of is high acidity. As mentioned before, spinach cannot handle an acidic soil. If this is the situation, you’ll see the spinach leaves turn yellow and grow very slowly. Next, be on the lookout for fungus and molds. Since spinach prefers a cool and damp environment, it is susceptible to these parasites. To make the conditions less appealing to fungus and molds, be certain the area is well ventilated, as well as drained, so that the water evaporates from the leaves quickly. Additionally, you can water in the morning so that the water evaporates.

Harvesting

One nice thing about spinach is that the leaves are edible at any time during the growing process. Generally 1-1.5 months is the right time, but try pulling some younger leaves to experiment with the flavors and timing in your garden. Once you harvest the leaves, try not to handle them too much to prevent damage.

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