How to Grow Spinach

Feb 21

Feb 21 How to Grow Spinach

Spinach is a cool season garden favorite, growing best in temperatures 50-70 degrees. Average high temperatures in San Diego from November to April are 66-70 degrees and average lows are 49-56 degrees. Most years it thrives in my garden.

At the coast we’ve had dips into the 30’s some years and short forays into the 80’s during the winter season but spinach still holds its own. In my Massachusetts zone 5b garden it would over-winter in a cold frame under a blanket of leaves and emerge in early spring for a welcome harvest.

If you garden in a mild winter area, there is still time to plant spinach for a spring harvest. Those who must wait for winter’s edge to fade can plant starts in cool spring weather.

Spinach is generally easy to grow though sometimes it can be difficult to germinate. I typically use seed that is less than two years old. Some years I direct seed in the garden. This year I’m growing to transplant.

I’ve had good success with priming spinach seeds which you can read about in More Seed Priming Tips: Spinach.

My favorite is a smooth-leaf variety, ‘Catalina’ from Renee’s Garden but there are many options. Check Johnny’s Seeds for the nineteen varieties they offer including savoyed-leaf, smooth-leaf, red-veined and Asian-leaf spinach.

‘Catalina’ baby leaf spinach from Renee’s Garden

Spinach does well in a container if that’s how you garden. This year I’m trialing ‘Little Hero’ container baby-leaf spinach to supplement the crop in my raised bed.

Everything you need to know about planting, growing and harvesting spinach is in these two blog posts on growing spinach.

Getting a Good Stand of Garden Spinach

Here are some topics from these articles that added to my knowledge base.

Prime spinach seeds for faster and better germination.
Refrigerate seeds one week before sowing to help germination.
Troubleshoot problems such as leaf miner, flea beetle, yellow leaves.
Grow onions with spinach.
Grow spinach sprouts from seed.

And if you need more reasons to grow spinach, there are these.

BTW, the small bamboo sticks interspersed with the spinach plants discouraged moles from disturbing my transplanted seedlings. Thankfully, this year they seem to have gone elsewhere.