Growing Spinach

Spinach has specific growing requirements and if you procrastinate you will miss out on this delicious  and nutritious green.

Spinach needs a good 6 weeks of cool weather.  It can be planted when soil temperatures are 55-65 degrees or as soon as your ground can be worked  It will not germinate well in soils that are above 70 degrees.  It is not a summer crops  It can be sown again in fall and protected under row covers for late fall harvests.

The spinach plant is daylength sensitive.  This means it waits until there are a certain number of daylight hours and that is the signal to bolt or set seed. When daylight hours reach 12-15, your spinach knows it's time to produce seeds. It is at this point that you can determine the sex of you plants if that is important to you.  If you save seed that will be a factor. You need both male and female plants.

 Keep in mind that spinach is wind pollinated and the pollen is very fine and travels far.  You can only save seed from one variety and must have both male and female plants.  

Types of Spinach

There are two types of spinach leaves:  smooth and savoyed or wrinkled.  Some people prefer the smooth, but I like both and plant some of both.  The seed  type can be used to determine the leaf type.  The smooth seed produces wrinkled leaves while the prickly seed produces smooth leaves.  

Planting Guides

Spinach should be seeded directly in the garden it does not like to be transplanted. It can usually be seeded 3-4 weeks before the last frost date which for me is May 14th.  If I count back 4 weeks, that means around mid April 1st can begin planting.  If weather permits and the soil has warmed up, I plant even early and use a low tunnel or floating row covers.

 Give the plants ample space.  No more than 4 per square foot.  It is a good idea to successive plant every couple weeks in early spring but stop planting if you do not have 6 weeks of cool weather remaining.  It does not like temperature above 75 nor does spinach do well in fluctuating temperatures.

Plant in a soil with plenty of organic matter worked in and a dry organic fertilizer.  I use a mixture of bone meal and blood meal.  Fertilizing is not usually necessary after that as long as you prepared your soil.  Mulch around the seedlings and water regularly.  Spinach is very cold hardy and can survive in temperature as low as 15-20 degrees. 

Harvesting

I usually harvest the outer leaves so I can have a continuous harvest but the entire plant can be harvested.  The younger the leaves, the more tender and better flavored they are. Harvest in the morning.  Slightly rinse the leaves and store in a plastic container or plastic bag.  Do not clean thoroughly until you are ready to use the spinach.  

Spinach is store with lettuce and sorrel  in a large plastic air tight container.

I enjoy spinach raw in spinach salads or mixed with other greens. It's also very good in place of lettuce on sandwiches.  It is very nutritious with vitamins A, B6, C, folate, calcium, and iron. 

Spinach Strawberry Salad

Pests and Disease of Spinach

Spinach can get leaf miners and Mosaic virus which is called spinach blight.

Leaf Miners

Brown  and tan blotches on the leaves are a sign of leaf miners.  The adult is a fly that pupates in the soil and lays white eggs on the under side of the leaf.  The larvae called maggots (yuck) enter the leaf and create leaf mines.  They are hard to kill with pesticides because they are inside the leaf.  I pull off infected leaves so that the larvae don't mature and feed to livestock or chickens.  To help control leaf miners, cultivate or turn over the soil where you plant spinach, chard, and beets to kill the pupae.  Row covers can also keep the adult from laying eggs on the leaves.

Spinach Blight

Plants infected with spinach blight just need to be pulled up.  There is no cure for viruses and they can be spread by insects feeding on various plants. 

Varieties of Spinach

Bloomsdale Longstanding (OP):  This is the standard for spinach.  It's my favorite.  It has deeply savoyed (wrinkled leaves) and is deep green and wonderfully flavored for salads.  The leaves are upright off the ground.  

America (OP)  A savoyed type that is supposed to be slow to bolt. A Bloomsdale longstanding type.  A new variety I am trying this year.

Space (F1):  A smooth leafed spinach with spoon shaped leaves. 

Tyee (F1):  This is slightly savoyed leaf.

Giant Noble (H):  Heirloom of 1926.  Very large leafed, tender

Melody (F1):  Also very large leaves with upright growth

Butterflay:  Another good variety but low to the ground and more susceptible to problems because of that.



There are lots of other varieties to try but my garden will always have Bloomsdale Long Standing along with a other varieties.  Be sure to try a smooth leaf variety.  It will make that spinach salad much more interesting.

Summer Spinach

After all the talk about cool weather, both New Zealand Spinach and Malabar Spinach that can be grown in the summer.  The reason is that neither are a true spinach.

Malabar Spinach is a perennial vine in warm climates.  It prefers hot humid weather.  The leaves are used like spinach in salads.

New Zealand spinach needs warm soil to germinate and does not tolerate frost .  The leaves can be substituted in cooked dishes for spinach.  It is very high in oxalic acid which causes a flavor many people do not like.

Tips on Growing Peas

Most people are only familiar with frozen or canned peas.  But you to truly experience the sweet taste of peas you need to grow your own, pick them, shell them, and cook them immediately.  Then you have truly experienced what sweet peas taste like.  Of course them are incredibly delicious eaten fresh out of the pod so not many may make to the kitchen, but still you can say you have experienced the sublime taste of sweet peas.

Basic Pea Practice:

- Direct seed into the garden do not use transplants

- Plant when soil temperature has warmed to a minimum of 40F however germination will be slow.  If you wait til soil temperature is 55-60 they germinate quickly.

- A good sign to plant is to plant when the Forsythia blooms

-Don't allow the soil to dry out

- You can soak peas overnight in water before planting to speed up germination.

- Plan on trellising or supporting peas.

One of the earliest springs crops you can plant are peas.  They have a very specific growing conditions and a short season but are always worth it. They are happiest in cool spring weather and dislike summer heat.  While the plants are frost tolerate the flowers are not so fall plantings are not usually very productive.

  In my garden the majority of peas are eaten fresh out of the pod.  They are a delicious and sweet, healthy snack.  I always try to shell a few batches of peas and cook them for a few meals, but they rarely make it that far.  There is an amazing difference between steamed fresh and frozen peas.  My last option, if any peas are remaining, is to try to freeze some.  Truthfully the majority get eaten fresh. I never seem to have enough peas to preserve so I am always increasing my plantings.

 

Meet the Pea

Peas are part of a group of plants called legumes.  Legumes bear pods with the seed inside.    Peas are different from their other legume friends in that they can be enjoyed fresh.  Other legumes like lentil, cow-peas, and beans are eaten dried.  

There are Four Types of Peas:

Shelling peas:  Shelling peas have rounded vibrant green pods with starchy, sweet, round peas inside.  These peas are meant to be shelled from the pod.  They can be enjoyed fresh, canned, cooked, or in soups.

Edible pod peas:  These include snow peas which have flat pods with the peas visibly bulging from the pod.  The pods are enjoyed fresh, in stir fry's, and salads and should be picked very young.

Snap Peas:  Snap peas have rounded edible pods.  They are best when slightly cooked and eaten fresh.  They develop a string that is easily removed by peeling it back from the pod.

 Dried or Field Peas:  These are allowed to mature in the pod until dry and stored and used in soups or stews.

When choosing a variety consider the maturity date and the height of the plants.  There are bush variety of peas that only grow to 2 feet tall and need very little support and trellising.  These small varieties are usually determinate meaning they produce a set number of flowers and fruits then quit producing.  

My spring garden.  Snow peas are planted around small round tomato cages.

The vine types vary in size some reaching 4-5 feet tall.  They need  trellising.  Last year I grew Telegraph peas which mature to 5 ft.  The trellis needs to be very sturdy so it will not blow over in the wind.  The vine types are more productive because they a indeterminate meaning they produce flowers and fruit over an extended period.

Tall Telephone peas are a climber reaching 4-5'  and are an heirloom dating back to 1881.

Peas as a Soil Builder

Peas and other legumes belong to the plant family known as the Fabaceae, which is also commonly called the bean family or the pulse family. In fact, commercial production of peas is commonly placed within the category of pulse production, and like  fellow legumes, peas are often referred to as "pulses."

Peas are the garden workhorse.  They produce fruit and improve the soil.  They belong to a unique group of plant called nitrogen fixing crops.  This includes all legumes.  They have a symbiotic relationship with a bacteria that causes them to convert nitrogen gas into a usable form of nitrogen in the soil.  Some gardeners inoculate the soil with the live rhizobial bacteria to further facilitate this process. 

Another benefit is that once picked the pea plants break down quickly and can be worked into the soil.  In order for your soil to benefit from the nitrogen fixing ability of peas always leave the roots to decompose in the soil.  Clip the tops off and put them in the compost pile if you need the space to plant summer crops or incorporate the plant into the soil to decompose.  

I finally broke down puchased pea fences.  They are great.

Planting Guide

As soon as the soil temperature warms to 40 degrees you can plant peas.  That can be in late March or early April.  I recomend waiting until the soil is a little warmer around 55-60 because they germinate faster.  Those planted too early will germinate but are slow. 

You can make additional plantings through early May.

Plant the seed 3 times the size of the seed and space them 2 inches apart.  I plant a row down both sides of the trellis. Trellises don't have to be vertical.  I have used the small round tomatoes changes which are too flimsy for tomatoes but perfect for peas. 

Peas do not need fertilizer if you properly prepare you beds each season.  That means that each spring and fall you add compost and a dry organic fertilizer.  If your beds are new you will need to work this into the soil but established healthy beds only need this applied to the surface. Preparing your beds in the fall means all you need to do is plant in the spring.  

Determining When Your Soil Can Be Worked

Harvesting

As soon as the pod begin to swell , it is time to harvest.   Check daily.  Peas left too long on the vine turn starchy and the pods become fiberous.  On indeterminant vine types, frequent picking encourages more production.  

Pea Tendrils

The top 6 inches of the pea plant including the pea tendril can be cut and used in salads and stir fry's.  They are sold in bunches at farmer's markets. Cascadia and Oregon Sugar Snaps are good varieties to use as pea tendrils.  Make a specific planting to use in this manner because once you cut the tendrils they are not going to produce flowers and fruit.

Pea Varieties

Snow or edible pods:  Oregon Sugar Pod II (OP), Avalanche

Shelling:   Canoe (OP), Lincoln (OP), Green Arrow (OP), Maestro, Dakota (OP), Tall Telephone (H) 1881 this one is a climber 4-5'

Snap:  Cascadia, (OP), Sugar Ann (OP),

Dried:  Admiral 

Saving Seeds:

Peas are a good crop to start seed saving.  Any OP or heirloom variety is a a candidate for seed saving.  Just allow the pods to remain on the vine until they are dry and brittle.  Shell the peas and store the seeds in a cool, dry, dark place.  Save seeds only from healthy vigorous plants.

Perennial Vegetables For Your Garden

 

Perennials are a plant that regrow each spring after going dormant in the winter. While most vegetable crops are grown as annuals and require replanting each year, perennials are planted once and provide years of delicious harvests.   

While many are familiar with perennial flowers, there are perennial vegetables and herbs you can add to your garden.  Once established you have years of harvests and minimal care to maintain the perennial. 

The perennials you can plant, depends on your planting zone. Those I am sharing can be grown in zones 4-7. 

Asparagus

Asparagus is grown from crowns which are the one year old root system of asparagus grown from seed.  The tender spears of an established asparagus patch are cut and enjoyed for 3-8 weeks depending on the age of your patch. The spears are then allowed to mature creating fern like foliage that can reach 5 feet.  This feeds the roots ensuring you will have a harvest the following year. It takes 2 years to establish before harvesting any spears.

Smoked asparagus with BBQ sauce, yum!

Growing Conditions:

- Cold winters where the ground freezes

-Dry summers

-Prefers a sandy loam soil and full sun

Choosing Asparagus Varieties

Asparagus plants are monoecious plants meaning they are either male or female plants.  Male plants produce more shoots while female plants must invest energy in producing seed and produce fewer shoots.  Jersey Knight or  Jersey Giant produce all male shoots. 

Planting Guide

Planting in a raised beds makes weeding and maintenance easier.  A raised bed also warms up earlier in the spring and allows you to properly amend your soil with plenty of organic matter. Be sure to start with a sandy loam soil and add 2" of compost. Raised beds will drain better preventing the crowns from rotting.

Dig a trench down two sides of your raised bed.  The trench should be about 1 foot deep.  You can add a dry organic fertilizer to the trench.  Place the crowns in the trench about a foot to a 1 1/2 ft apart.  Cover with 3 inches of soil.  Continue adding soil as the plants emerge until it is level with the soil line.

Maintenance

Each spring add a complete dry organic fertilizer and mulch with compost around the plants.  Keep the bed free of weeds.  The first two years water regularly.  As asparagus matures it sends down deep roots and can go longer without water.  

After the fronds die back leave them there through the winter to act as a protective mulch.  In the spring before the spears emerge cut the foliage to the ground and remove it.

For more detailed information on harvesting refer to this post:

Growing & Harvesting Asparagus

Rhubarb

Rhubarb is a lush large leafed perennial.  It adds a tropical touch to our high desert gardens and one of the earliest garden treats. With stalks ranging from deep crimson to green with a touch of red, it is truly a beautiful plant.  While leaves are toxic, the stalks are the prize used in pies, jams, lemonade, sauces, and breads. Rhubarb will produce for 10 or more years.

Rhubarb crowns are cylindrical in shape.  Both the roots and the buds which will become the stalks grow from the crown.

Planting Rhubarb

• Purchase 1 year old rhubarb crowns which can be ordered online or found at garden centers.  
• Dig a large basket size hole.  Amend with compost and a handful of a complete dry organic fertilizer
• Rhubarb should be spaced 2-3 feet apart
• Plant the crown with the roots down and buds up about 2" deep
• Water well
• Rhubarb tolerates in afternoon shade in hot summers

Care of Rhubarb

In early spring, give a feeding of fish emulsion.  Clean up the area of debris, weed, add a dry organic fertilizer, and mulch with 2" of mulch.  Even moisture is important.  Cut out all bud stalks to encourage more leaf growth. You can side dress with a complete organic fertilizer throughout the season.

Harvesting Rhubarb

• Do not harvest stalks the first growing season and harvest very sparingly the second to allow for the plant to become well established
• Harvest the 3rd year for 8-10 weeks which is until around mid summer.
• Harvest 12- 18 inch thick stalks.  When the stalks become thin stop harvesting.  Always leave 2-4 leaves when harvesting
• To harvest grab the stalk at the base turn and twist.

Refer to this post for more rhubarb tips and delicious recipes:

Rhubarb Growing Tips & Recipes

Rhubarb: The Pie Plant

Strawberry Rhubarb Jam

Rhubarb Breakfast Cake

Rhubarb Strawberry Cobbler

Rhubarb Lemonade

Rhubarb Crisp

Sorrel

Sorrel is a perennial green that sprouts in early spring. It is a traditional European cool season crop.  Although less common in American gardens, it deserves a permanent spot in your garden.  It looks like spinach or arugula but this leafy green has a lemony zesty tang.  Oxelic acid gives it the sour taste.  (Same substance found in rhubarb which is in the same family) It's nickname is sour grass. 

Sorrel is the common name for three different species common garden sorrel or sour dock, French sorrel, or mountain sorrel.  All three have a history of being collected in the wild and grown in the garden.

Sorrel has arrow shaped leaves and grows to about 12".  It prefers the cool spring and fall.  In summer it will quickly bolt sending up a tall flower stock. Sorrel will self seed if flower stocks are left.

Growing Sorrel

Sorrel can be grown from seed. Prepare the bed remember it will be a permanent planting.  Amend your soil with lots of organic matter.  

 It can be seeded directly in the garden when soil warms to 50 degrees F. Press  the seeds into the soil and cover very lightly. Thin the plants to 12" apart.

Sorrel will overwinter in the garden and be a welcomed early green.  Plants can then be propagated easily by divisions in early spring.  You will want to thin them out.

Harvesting

Harvest the outer leaves when they about 4 inches.  Keep the flower stocks trimmed to the ground and cut off older declining leaves to help keep younger new leaves sprouting.

Because of the Oxelic acid deer do tend to leave sorrel alone

For recipes and ways to use sorrel refer to this post:

Sorrel: Perennial Green

Sage

Perennial Herbs

There are also many perennial herbs you can grow in your garden.  Your planting zone will determine if the herb will grow as a perennial or needs to be grown as an annual.

In my zone thyme, oregano, lemon balm, mints, sage, chives, lavender, and parsley can all be grown as perennials.  Many of these will reseed and spread rapidly throughout the garden.  It avoid this don't allow the plant to go to seed. Frequent harvesting will prevent this.

 Mints, thyme and oregano can also spread through roots.  A lot of these herbs are best contained in pots or a box dedicated to perennial herbs. 

In warmer zones rosemary, marjoram and other herbs are perennials.  In my zone I plant them in pots and move them into the greenhouse to overwinter.

 

How To Select Seed Varieties

 

When choosing seeds what you DON'T want to do is walk into a nursery and pick up any variety or the cheapest seed packet.  All seed companies are not the same!  You need to put a little thought and planning into your seed selection in order to have success.  

Some of the things to look for in a seed company are:

•  Genetic integrity (the seed is true to type)
• Good germination rates
• Companies that provide detailed descriptions about varieties
• Companies that sign the Safe Seed Pledge which means no GMO seeds
• Price of seeds and shipping
• Number of seeds per packet (While you may need lots of carrot seeds for succession planting you don't need lot of one variety of pumpkin or cucumber)
• Growing info for crops

I prefer to order online for a number of reasons:

• More varieties to choose from
• I enjoy reading seed catalogs.  They contain a wealth of information
• I have had better success with good quality seed from reliable companies

Some of my favorite seed companies:

• Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds
• Pine Tree Seeds
• Seed Saver's Exchange
• Johnny's Selected Seeds
• Territorial Seeds
• Fedco Seeds

After you determine what vegetables and herbs you want to plant, you need to determine what crops you will start from seed.  Seeds can be direct seeded in the garden or started indoors.  Depending on your planting zone, certain vegetables that need a long growing season should either be planted as transplants or started indoors and transplanted outdoors after danger of frost.  Crops such as peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, and onions are in this catagory.  So decide what seeds you need to direct seed or start indoors. Then determine what transplants you will purchase. If you are not set up to start seeds indoors then plan on purchasing transplants.

How to Plant Seeds & Transplants

Factors to Consider When Choosing a Variety:

Hybrids vs. Open Pollinated or Heirlooms

 

Open Pollinated are genetically diverse and have more variability.  this is why you may have success with them one year and a failure the next.  OP tend to be less expensive than hybrids because the breeding process is cheaper for seed companies. If you want to save seeds from a certain crop you will want to purchase OP or heirlooms.  Not all open pollinated seeds are the same from different companies.  Companies can have different strains of the same varieties.  That is why if you have success with one variety of OP seeds but switch companies you may not have as much success. That's why keeping notes is so important.

Heirlooms, Hybrids & Open Pollinated

Heirlooms are open pollinated but usually specific to a region, have a history of seeds being saved and passed down, and have stories about the heritage of the seed.  Sometimes, as is true with tomatoes, you have unique flavors, colors, and shapes not available in hybrids.  Heirlooms can be more difficult to grow but are well worth the effort.

Hybrid plants have two separate distinct parents. These parents must be crossed each time to get the hybrid variety.  Hybrids are also know for having more vigor.  If you save seeds from hybrids you will not get the same variety and it will be less vigorous.  If you aren't saving seeds hybrids are a good option because they can bred disease resistance into the genes of hybrids. 

 

Days to Maturity DTM

Days to maturity has two meanings. For vegatables that are seeded directly in the garden the date refers to time of  planting the seed until maturity or harvest.  This includes beans, corn, peas, lettuce, peas, spinach squash cucumber, melons beet, kale, and collards which should all be seeded directly into the garden 

For crops that are typically planted as transplants it means from the date of transplant until harvest.  This includes tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower.

Days to maturity is extremely important if your growing season is short.  For example, smaller watermelons such as Blacktail or Crimson Sweet may ripen before a frost but larger melons such as Georgia Rattlesnake may not ripen before a frost especially if you plant late or have a cold spring.  The same is true for pumpkins, winter squash and cabbage.  In my area we have cold springs and then it just gets hot so spring crops like cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower tend to mature in the heat and have problems with aphids.  Planting smaller cabbages or heat tolerant varieties meant for summer harvest helps with this issue. 

With tomatoes this is very important.  The large beefsteak varieties will be the last to ripen and can ripen very late in the season especially if you have cooler than normal weather.  Look at other tomatoes to get an earlier harvest such as paste, salad or smaller slicing varieties.  A combination will give you more continuous harvests.

Disease Resistance is usually coded within the growing information for each type of crop.  Choosing a variety based just on disease resistance is not helpful.  You only need to worry about diseases you actually have in your area not every disease. HR means high resistance IR means intermediate resistance. No variety is completely resistant and if disease pressure is very high in your area you will probably still have problems.  If, however, you know you have problems with certain diseases it will be beneficial to try disease resistant varieties. Good cultural practices combined with disease resistance varieties will ensure more success than disease resistance varieties and poor cultural habits and poor soil management.

Other helpful information included in seed catalogs and on seed packets:  

• The soil temperature when seeds will germinate
• Days to start indoors before last frost.  Great to know for planning your calendar
• Description of the crop and positive characteristics
• Uses of the crop for example pickling, slicing, roasting etc

Choose companies dedicated to producing good seed of trial proven varieties.  Cheap seed is a bad investment and does not save you money or time but instead is guaranteed to frustrate your gardening experience.  

Starting Seeds Indoors