Over the years I’ve grown more and more impressed with fall and winter spinach, and less so with spring and summer spinach. While I have grown good crops of spring-planted spinach before, I’ve often felt rushed to harvest it before it begins bolting, it’s unpalatable response to the increasing daylength of summer’s approach. I find that late-summer sowings of spinach quickly produce very healthy plants, much less likely to bolt before harvest. Pictured at right is a bed sown on August 4th, with two rows of ‘Tyee’ spinach and one mixed row of ‘Rouge D’Hiver’ lettuce and ‘Rouge de Verone’ raddichio. The lettuce and raddichio won’t be ready to harvest until late fall or winter, after I’ve erected a cloche over the bed, but the spinach is in it’s prime right now. I sowed a different bed to the same variety of spinach on the 20th of August, and I expect that sowing to produce a harvest in late autumn and early winter.
Tagged: Plants

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4 Comments
I wish that I had some of that spinach. It looks wonderful !
Ryan—love that spinach! Did you direct seed it or start it as seedlings?
Pops
Fantasticl spinach! I share your observations about the difference between Spring and late Summer Fall sown.
Pops – I direct seeded it. Some experiences last fall led me to believe that transplanted spinach may be more inclined to bolt prematurely than plants that are direct seeded.