Spinach

Ease of Growing [Scale 1-5] - 1 (Easy)

How Time Consuming

Very easy and low maintenance.

Recommended Varieties   

• ‘Palco’ Organic – Dark Green variety, can be sown almost all year round and is delicious added to salads in 'baby leaf' form or as mature leaves. Quick to establish, slow to bolt and mildew resistant.
• ‘Primo’ F1 Organic - Organic Spinach F1 Primo Seeds are high yielding, slow bolting and show good resistance to strains of downy mildew.

There are lots of new varieties out this year in the seed catalogues all offering higher downy mildew resistance.

Home Grown Vs Supermarket

I don’t know anyone who would rather buy a bag of wet wilting spinach in a plastic supermarket bag than cut as and when required from your own garden.

Best Sites and Soils

Spinach prefers rich soil so before sowing, improve the soil by digging in up to two bucketfuls per square metre of well-rotted organic matter such as garden compost and raking in 150g per square metre of general fertiliser such as Growmore.

When to sow

Sow seeds of summer cultivars every few weeks from February (under fleece or cloches), or outdoors from mid-March to the end of May.  Sow winter cultivars in August and again in September.
Distance between plants - Sow seeds 2.5cm (1in) deep in rows 30cm (12in) apart, or in a large container.

When to harvest

Harvest the leaves continually once they're large enough to pick this will encourage the plant to grow more leaves.