It's no secret that we love growing spinach. It's relatively easy to grow and there's so many uses for it in the kitchen. In the spring and fall we grow a few 5 Tiers full of spinach which is about 90 spinach plants per tower! Keep reading to see how we do it.
First, we start out with a really good potting mix. The type we use is Fox Farm's Happy Frog, but you could use whichever potting mix you prefer. Just make sure it's lightweight and drains well. Spinach plants don't like their roots to be soggy. From there, we plant three seeds per pocket - one in the back and two towards the front of the pocket. They don't mind being so close together. Water well after planting and make sure the soil doesn't dry out until the seeds have germinated. Once they have germinated, you can let the plants dry out slightly between waterings. In the spring, we typically water about once a week since the temperatures are cool and the sun is not as intense.
Spinach loves cool temperatures. They may tolerate a light frost, but they do best grown in mild temperatures in the spring and fall months. Check with your local Master Gardener's Extension or Garden Center to find exact planting dates for your area.
Since a 5 Tier GreenStalk has 30 planting pockets and we plant 3 plants per pocket, that gives us 90 spinach plants total. Although this sounds like a ton, we harvest regularly so they never get too crowded. If they start to yellow from all the spring rain, they may need a dose of nitrogen fertilizer. We like to use a fish emulsion blend for that - it smells terrible but does the trick!
Aphids like spinach almost as much as we do so occasionally we need to spray some neem oil to help keep them off our plants. We harvest spinach about 3 times per plant, usually around that time they start to bolt since the temps in our area get warm pretty quick. Spinach is great for multiple harvests since it regrows so quickly. When harvesting, you can do a single leaf at a time, or just cut the whole plant back to about 2 inches about soil level. We love plants that you can get multiple harvest out of, like lettuce, which we consider to be one of the easiest vegetables to grow!
Happy Gardening!
Cody Catherine Thomas
