Winter Sowing Spinach
Winter sowing spinach is awesome! I feel like I’ve mentioned it a thousand times, but I absolutely love spinach. As someone who doesn’t have the healthiest of eating habits, spinach is delightful. From the texture to the inoffensive taste, spinach is a great choice for me and my journey to making better choices. Depending upon where you live, the process of growing spinach can be a little bit tricky. People will mild climates can likely plant it throughout the year. However, here in my hot summer garden spinach is not happy.
Here in zone 7ish, the general advice seems to be that spinach should be planted in early spring as soon as the soil can be worked. This sounds great, in theory. However, by the time the seeds begin to germinate and the plants have become large enough to harvest leaves from, it’s starting to get hot outside. Hot weather can only mean one thing for spinach – the plants are going to bolt. I tell you what, they are going to bolt FAST.
While overwintering spinach in the fall is an option for many growers (including me), another choice is to winter sow spinach seeds in January and February. I’ve heard people insist that spinach doesn’t transplant well, but I’ve never had a problem in my yard. By winter sowing the spinach, I’m able to have seedlings in the ground as soon as possible. In most cases, this means I’m transplanting into the garden by the first week in March. That’s nearly two entire months before my last frost date.
Winter sowing can be done in both a milk jugs or bottle, as well as in a low tunnel in yard. This year’s spinach were winter sown in early January, and have already started to grow in their trays!
Winter sowing spinach has made a major difference for me – just look at the progress photo from last season.
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