Innovating Organic Gardening

The latter was how we used to have it when I was a kid. It was a simple family favorite. – Yes, I was the kid who loved spinach. 😋🥬

Ok, true confession, I pretty much only plant spinach in the fall, keep it in a hoop house, eat it all winter and into the spring and don’t replant in the spring.  

We tend to get freak super-hot spells earlier and earlier (think 90°F) which kills the seeds or baby seedlings, so now I move on from fall sown spinach to a summer crop.

Cool Hardy Spinach

Spinach is a cool weather crop which makes it a great fall green. 

It is hardy to 15° or 20°F which means in much of the country, it can overwinter without any protection. Therefore, you can easily harvest spinach fresh from your garden all winter long.

Therefore, you can easily harvest spinach fresh from your garden all winter long.

For those of us who get colder winter temps, grow it in a hoop house. This gives you a micro-climate that nudges up the temps enough to grow it longer into the cold months.  

Types of Spinach

Although there are some spinach substitutes that will grow in hot weather, here we are talking about the cool loving types with two types of leaves.

Smooth leaved varieties:

• Easier to wash
• Less volume per plant

Savoy leaved varieties:

• Tend to be darker green
• More harvest volume per plant
• Longer wash time

Seeding Spinach

Because spinach does not take up allot of space, you can put in anywhere, even in containers.

Granted, if you are a huge spinach freak, you might want to give it more space in your garden.

Plant seeds 1/8^th – 1/4″ “deep.

For baby leaf spinach plant seeds 2-4” apart. If you want to plant for baby bunches, go with the 2” apart.

If you are growing in rows and want space in between, good row widths are 12-18”.

Because my raised beds are 3-4’ wide, I can harvest from both sides, therefore I will plant a band of each variety I want, with a little space in between the types, that way I use the whole bed and get more harvest.   

This works well if you don’t have a large garden and want to grow some other direct seeded plants as well as spinach.

Seeds germinate best in soil temperatures of 32-60°F, so, it will depend on your planting zone when to plant. 

If you have shade cloth you can put over the bed during the day, this will allow you to plant a bit sooner. If the temperatures cool down at night, you can remove the shade cloth for the overnight, although this is not necessary.

If you are planning on harvesting whole plants, then you will need to succession plant every two weeks for a continual harvest.  

Harvesting Spinach

You can harvest either the baby or at full sized leaves.  

Here are a couple of strategies:

If you want only baby spinach, then you do want to succession plant every two weeks to keep your harvest going.

What I do instead, as the plants get bigger, I only harvest the outer leaves.

As long as you only harvest the outer leaves, the plant will keep growing. 

Once the plants start to grow into each other, you may need to choose some plants to harvest whole plant so others can grow bigger.

By doing this, I use less seed and get more harvest.

Preserving Spinach

I don’t wash my spinach when I put it in the fridge, Instead I wait to wash it until I am going to use it. I find it lasts longer in the fridge when it is not wet.  

You can also freeze spinach either raw or blanched. 

The frozen spinach you get in bags from the supermarket has been blanched. But you can freeze it raw also. No matter which you do, you want the spinach as dry as possible before freezing. This is why I prefer to do it fresh as is easier to dry it.

You can also make spinach chips by drying it in a dehydrator.  

Pests & Diseases Affecting Fall Grown Spinach

One of the reasons I love growing in the fall is that I don’t have the pest pressure that can happen in spring and summer.

🌿Aphids and leaf miners can go after your spinach, but I haven’t seen this with fall grown spinach unless I leave the plants into the later spring when the temps have warmed up.

🌿Two diseases that can affect spinach are downy mildew (Peronospora farinosa f. sp. spinaciae) and fusarium wilt (Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. spinaciae). I have not had problems with these, which is wonderful living in such a humid climate as I do in zone 7b.

• Fusarium wilt is primarily soil borne so if you have this issue, you’ll need to address your soil heath.
• Downy mildew tends to happen when temperatures are warmer, again, less a problem with fall sown than spring sown spinach.

Some varieties have been bred for resistance to some diseases, so if they are a problem in your area, look to the hybrid varieties below as options. These are hybrid varieties – NOT GMOs.

Tested and Trusted Spinach Varieties

Over the years I have grown at least twelve varieties of spinach.

The ones below are the four I have zeroed in on as growing the best for me for the  last four years. I also include an honorable mention.

Bloomsdale Longstanding

If you want flavor, this one still is the best. There are various “Bloomsdale” varieties and I have tried all I have come across.  Although Winter Bloomsdale is good, I still think the “Longstanding” variety has the best flavor.

David Landreth developed the original Bloomsdale spinach in the 1800s. In 1925, the variety was improved and reintroduced to the market by seed breeders Zwaan and Van der Molen in Voorburg, Netherlands, under the name Long Standing Bloomsdale. The spinach variety won  the All-America or AAS Award in 1937 and continues to be a popular variety today.

This variety is generally easy to find. At the time of writing this, I buy it from High Mowing Organic Seeds.

Bloomsdale Longstanding is a wonderful overwintering spinach for a bountiful harvest.

Giant Winter

Giant Winter, or Giant of Winter is the English translation of the Dutch, Gigante d’Inverno. Anther from Zwaan and Van der Molen, who developed it in 1926.

With large dark semi-savoyed leaves, this is another great winter spinach variety.

It was bred for overwintering in a high tunnel or under a layer of mulch in the cold months.  It does get big, likely the largest variety I have grown so if you want nice big juicy spinach leaves, this one might be for you.

This is not one I grow in spring as it really doesn’t like the heat, so as the name implies, this one really is a winter wonder.

I get it from High Mowing, which is where I have been buying spinach seed from lately, but Baker Creek, Adaptive Seeds and Territorial Seed Company all have it – so you have options.

Renegade Spinach

If you are looking for a more disease resistant variety, especially against powdery mildew, then look to this hybrid variety.

I first grew it about six years ago and it continues to do well, so it stays as part of my spinach bed.  I do like to grow more than one variety each year (that goes for other crops too) because any variety can have an off-year, so growing more than one gives you a bit of insurance.

Sometimes I think I won’t reorder seeds when I run out, but then it keeps doing so well, I order and grow it again.

I get it from High Mowing Organic Seeds.

Ted Tabby

I keep growing this one because it looks so pretty. The thick juicy round leaves are smooth dark green with red veins.  The red color comes out when it is cold and goes away in heat.

I have tried three red spinaches, and this one has outperformed the others. Red Tabby was bred by the Dutch company Rijk Zwaan. Do we see a pattern here?  Seems we owe much of our luscious spinach variety from breeders in the Netherlands.

The red color comes from an antioxidant called betacyanin.

Being a hybrid, it is another good choice for a disease resistant spinach.

This one has a milder flavor than some others which is pleasing and works well in salads as baby spinach.

I get it from John Scheeper’s Kitchen Garden Seeds, or Territorial.

Space – Honorable Mention

10 years ago or so, I grew allot of Space Spinach and really loved it. It germinated and grew well, was a smoother leaved variety and was reliable. Then it disappeared from seed catalogs.

About three years ago is appeared again and I was looking forward to growing it again.  I tried it two years in a row and it did not do well – bummed.  I still have a soft spot for Space Spinach which is so called because it takes up less space in the garden. 

I am going to try it again, and felt it deserved a place on this list.  I get it from High Mowing Organic Seeds and is bred by Bejo Seeds.

This is another one to try for is downy mildew resistance and what used to be for me, a long harvest window.  I would plant it in fall, and still be eating it the beginning of April.

Reported Health Benefits of Spinach

Although I am not a doctor and therefore cannot make any health claims, research shows that spinach is:

• A source of vitamin A which is great for healthy skin and lungs.
• Vitamin C which many of us use to strengthen our immune systems when we think we might be a cold.
• Calcium to support strong bones and teeth.
• Iron to develop the protein hemoglobin for oxygen transport through the bloodstream, which helps combat fatigue and make a strong like Popeye (if you don’t know who that is, he is an old cartoon character, have some fun watching this compilation video._ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxO758l7JVM
• Fiber to regulate the digestive tract, a help insure the other nutrients are taken up in the body.
• Several minerals including folic acid, magnesium, manganese, and lutein, a carotenoid that aids in eye health.
• Potassium which has been shown to lower blood pressure.

By seeding spinach in the fall, you have a spinach harvest all winter long.

May your spinach and the rest of your fall and winter garden bring you a bounty of food – Debby Ward, Member of GardenComm International