Spinach!!!

[curly_kate]

I finally managed to grow spinach!! I would take a picture of it, but I already ate what I picked (spinach salad - yum!), and it's pouring again outside, so I can't take a photo of my plants. But I'm so happy because my spinach always dies on me. Now if my luck holds out with the cauliflower, I'll feel like a real success!

I brought the spinach to work for my lunch, and the guy I share an office with looked at me like I was nuts for eating spinach. Poor guy only eats McDonald's; he doesn't know what he's missing!

 

[Hattie the Hen]

He will be the one with spots I guess....! Congratulations for finally managing to grow it. Keep it up. Try Perpetual Spinach (sometimes called New Zealand Spinach) for the summer -- It doesn't bolt in the summer as the other one does.

HAPPY GARDENING :happy_flower


:rose Hattie :rose

 

[wifezilla]

This is my first time planting spinach. I don't have enough to eat yet, but I have plants!!!

 

[vfem]

Fresh spinach is the BEST!!!!!

My freezer is full of the cooked stuff from my previous picking... but I'm out for fresh for salads... quite a bummer.

 

[digitS']

For that "sad" group of us still waiting for spinach larger than toothpicks: I offer this photo of a weed .

Actually, this is orache and it is every bit as tender and tasty as spinach, its close relative. At least, it seems so to this spinach-deprived gardener.

Orache is, indeed, a worthwhile vegetable to plant in your garden but it will self-sow with a vengeance. I save a "mother plant" in some out of the way location each spring and allow it to go to seed. Tiny sprouts show up in September and survive the winter despite tons of snow and sub-zero temperatures.

I've already had one harvest of these little purple guys. Nothing else outside of protective coverings is ready, not even my rhubarb. Well, the rhubarb is now close .

On a little aside: Spinach is also supposed to over-winter but it would take some foresight to get it sown in the Fall. I guess by then I'm just too exhausted with gardening to think of it . . . relying on the orache mother to take care of me.

Steve

 

[Hattie the Hen]

I grow orach too. it turned up about 7 years ago & settled in with me, the cat & my chickens....!! I do save some seeds every year but I very rarely need them. Incidently the chickens love it. I hang it up for the boys in the winter as it takes their minds off fighting each other. There is a green version of it too but I have never grown it. The seeds can lay dormant for years. I love it very young in salads.

I've just diect sown perpetual spinach as we are due a hotter summer than usual; it won't bolt even in our hottest weather -- not sure about yours though?

Hope you had a great weekend. :happy_flower I've been potting up tomato plants; they all have their first real leaves. So far I have done 56 tomatoes. Some are for a my neighbors, we all grow different ones & exchange them & other veg plants. It's fun & it means we all get to try something different.


:rose Hattie :rose

 

[me&thegals]

Steve--That orache is beautiful!! I will have to try some. Would it work yet this year, or for a fall planting?

Ok--spinach-deprived gardeners, let me once again put in a good word for Bloomsdale Longstanding Spinach. Drum roll please. This is a beautiful, thick, dark green, gorgeous, slow-to-bolt spinach. I plant it in August, water it well to get it established (but only very small plants by late fall) and then let it go. It takes a WI beating all winter and spring long here in zone 4 and then in late April starts getting huge and lush. I've been cutting mine for a couple weeks now. Seriously, try it

 

[HiDelight]

right now I am in the thinning phase of eating the baby spinach

and this week will plant another bed of it ..I can not even imagine ever have too much fresh spinach?


another thing from the garden I adore is deep fried spinach leaves! or if you want toss them on a a baking sheet with a little olive oil and bake them until crispy

sprinkled with a little sea salt and healthy chips
you can do the same with kale if you like

 

[Purple Strawberry]

right now I am in the thinning phase of eating the baby spinach

and this week will plant another bed of it ..I can not even imagine ever have too much fresh spinach?


another thing from the garden I adore is deep fried spinach leaves! or if you want toss them on a a baking sheet with a little olive oil and bake them until crispy

sprinkled with a little sea salt and healthy chips
you can do the same with kale if you like

I know nothing about spinach. I thought that this was a cold veggie? Isn't it getting to hot during the day to plant?

I am just trying to learn :tools

 

[digitS']

Steve--That orache is beautiful!! I will have to try some. Would it work yet this year, or for a fall planting?

Ok--spinach-deprived gardeners, let me once again put in a good word for Bloomsdale Longstanding Spinach. Drum roll please. This is a beautiful, thick, dark green, gorgeous, slow-to-bolt spinach. I plant it in August, water it well to get it established (but only very small plants by late fall) and then let it go. It takes a WI beating all winter and spring long here in zone 4 and then in late April starts getting huge and lush. I've been cutting mine for a couple weeks now. Seriously, try it

I'm sorry that I missed this post . . . Yes, orache could be sown probably in September there in Wisconsin. Then it could stand beside your Longstanding until you harvest both in the spring.

Purple Strawberry, you are in Georgia. The temperature here is supposed to drop into the 20's tomorrow night. The spinach should be fine but I'm wondering about my aster transplants . . . :/

Steve