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Planting Spinach

September 25th, 2008

Last night I planted some spinach in my new raised bed (which is already half full of red cabbage, kale & mache).

I didn’t have much luck last time I tried to start spinach so I used a different technique this time. I started with furrows made every 4 inches, then I dropped seeds every 2 inches into them (I had trouble with germination last time, so hopefully I’ll get a 50% rate then they’ll be nicely spaced).

Then I covered them with about 1/2″ of sifted compost (it’s supposed to help with dampening off & other problems). It made these lovely lines in the soil.


Then I watered well and I’m hoping for the best. I’m going to use a floating row cover and lots of straw to overwinter this spinach. This will give me an early crop of spinach next spring (at least that’s what all the books say, I’ve never done it before).

By the time I was finished it was getting dark, good thing we have a big security light to garden by. Anyone else had luck overwintering spinach?

6 Comments to “Planting Spinach”
  1. Carolyn on September 25, 2008 at 6:26 am

    Great Pics. I will be looking forward to see how the spinach turns out.

    Carolyn

    Reply to Carolyn's comment

  2. Jennifer on September 25, 2008 at 12:58 pm

    I have negative luck with spinach so far. I’ve tried twice and it gets as far as the buds of its first true leaves, then promptly dies. Like the beets. We hope to do some major soil amending this winter to help out crops in the spring.

    Reply to Jennifer's comment

  3. Joe on September 27, 2008 at 11:50 am

    Your soil looks so soft and rich…must be wonderful for gardening.

    I have never grown spinach, but I may try this winter. It’s probably better to grow your own than risk getting salmonella-infected spinach from the store!

    Reply to Joe's comment

  4. Susy on September 27, 2008 at 9:00 pm

    It’s my own mix of soil. I use 1/3 compost, 1/3 peat moss and 1/3 vermiculite. I also add some rock minerals, I have a mix of greensand, rock phosphate, bone meal, blood meal and gypsum. I also added some Dr Earth starter fertilizer, hopefully it works out!

    Reply to Susy's comment

  5. For the Love of Popeye at Chiot’s Run on October 7, 2008 at 5:20 am

    […] spinach seeds germinated wonderfully. I’m guessing I had about a 90% germination rate, which is great. When […]

    Reply to For the Love of Popeye at Chiot’s Run's comment

  6. My First Harvest of 2009 | Chiot's Run on February 19, 2009 at 5:01 am

    […] you remember back in September when I planted my spinach, you’ll recall I was hoping for an early spring harvest after mulching my spinach throughout the […]

    Reply to My First Harvest of 2009 | Chiot’s Run's comment

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This is a daily journal of my efforts to cultivate a more simple life, through local eating, gardening and so many other things. We used to live in a small suburban neighborhood Ohio but moved to 153 acres in Liberty, Maine in 2012.

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