Planting Spinach: Tips for Beginner Gardeners
When it comes to vegetable gardening, spinach planting is a great addition. Spinach is a wonderful source of Vitamin A and one of the healthiest sources of so many minerals and nutrients that we can grow. When you think about how to grow spinach, you should first think about which kind you’d like to grow, there are a few kinds of spinach you can grow:
Spinach Varieties
- Crinkled leaf spinach
- Plain leaf spinach
- Savoy spinach
All types of spinach are wonderful in their own way. Once you decide what kind of spinach you’d like grow, you need to know some spacing tips prior to planting your spinach seeds.
Spinach Plant Spacing in Your Garden:
After deciding what kind of spinach you’d like to grow for your vegetable garden, make sure to plan your spinach planting for early in the spring. Spring is the best time to plant spinach! Once you’re in season, make sure to place your spinach seeds in the soil as soon as your garden space is ready. Spinach planting is best suited for outdoors, rather than pots or containers. You can plant them 1⁄2 an inch deep and make sure you put about 12 to 15 seeds per foot of row you are planting. Planning accordingly for spacing your spinach seeds will ensure healthy of spinach growth. Once your plants are at least one inch tall, you can start thinning your spinach plants to about two to four inches apart. Finally, one of the best tips for growing spinach is to make sure your rows are only 12 inches apart because this keeps weeds down to a minimum.
The best way to grow spinach is to do a planting every couple to every few weeks. This will yield fresh spinach all summer long. Because spinach is a leafy vegetable, you will always rinse the leaves before using. However, one thing about spinach planting you will love is that you do not have to fertilize the ground before planting or during the growth phase; spinach just doesn’t require it.
When to Pick Spinach
It really doesn’t take long for your spinach to fill out the rows. They grow much like lettuce. Once you see five or six good leaves on a plant, go ahead and pick them. Fresh spinach is great mixed with lettuce in a salad or by itself in a spinach salad. You can wait until you have enough and cook them down as well.
If you planted your spinach the way it is suggested, you should be able to be picking spinach all summer long to add to your dinner table, and you shouldn’t run out of fresh spinach until the end of the growing season in late summer to early fall.