Backyard Gardening - How to Grow Spinach

Backyard Gardening – How to Grow Spinach

Backyard Gardening - How to Grow Spinach

The fall planting season is here and one of my favorite vegetables is spinach. In my house, we eat a lot of spinach. This green, leafy vegetable is full of vitamins A, B and C and is high in iron and calcium.

Quick Tip: One great way to eat spinach is to make it into a smoothie. Simply add spinach, bananas, strawberries (or any berry) and coconut milk into a blender and blend. Add some flax seed for extra health power.

How to Grow Spinach in Your Backyard

Even if you live an apartment and have a container garden, you can grow spinach in your backyard. Simply follow these steps:

  1. Preparing the Soil
    • According to Organic Gardening, spinach loves a nitrogen-rich soil.
    • The roots of a spinach plant grows deep, so make sure that you’ve loosened up the soil to about one foot deep before planting. If you are using a container to grow spinach, make sure to use a deep container that is at least one foot deep.
  2. When to Plant
    • The bottom line here is that spinach needs about 6 weeks of cool weather before harvesting. The Old Farmer’s Almanac reports that the soil cannot be over 70 degrees.
    • You can plant in the spring as soon as the soil can be worked or 6 weeks before the last frost. In the fall, you can plant the seeds once the soil has cooled below 70 degrees even if the ground is barely workable.
  3. How to Plant
    • Sow your spinach seeds about an inch to a half inch deep.
    • Lightly cover them with soil.
    • You can plant about twelve seeds per foot of the row, giving them about two inches apart in space.
  4. Watering
    • Water often, especially when planting in the fall. The water will help to keep the seeds cooler.

Bring it Home

Spinach can grow in cold weather. What we mean by cold weather is that spinach can actually survive a frost and temperatures as low as 15 degrees. That is why fall planting really is a great time to plant spinach.

This article will tell you about 4 other vegetables that you can still plant this fall, 5 Vegetables to Plant in Your Garden This Fall. Happy Planting.

Have you tried planting spinach in the fall? If not, would you like to give it a try?

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