Content
- Summer and winter harvest of spinach
- Growing season and harvest time
- Second harvest in the spring
- Harvest spinach up to four times
- One-time harvest
- Harvest tips:
- Store and preserve spinach
- Tips & Tricks
Summer and winter harvest of spinach
Spinach can be grown and harvested all year round. It takes only about eight weeks to mature. The harvest time can be determined by every gardener. This is either in early summer or autumn and depends on the time of sowing. With overwintered spinach a second harvest in spring is possible.
Growing season and harvest time
The sowing of spinach takes place either from March to May or from August to September. Early spinach is sown from March to May. Its harvest time lasts from April to June. When sowing in August, the harvest takes place from the end of September to November.
From sowing to harvest, only eight weeks pass. If the plant has developed large leaves, the spinach is ready for harvest.
Second harvest in the spring
If you have grown one of the many hardy varieties ("Matador", "Monnopa", "Winter Giant"), you leave the spinach in the bed over the winter. You can harvest it a second time in the spring.
For wintering, the spinach is covered in fleece or twigs in particularly cold layers.
Harvest spinach up to four times
For the repeated harvest, the spinach is harvested from the outside to the inside. First, you cut off the outer leaves and just above the ground.
You leave the heart of the plant, then the spinach drives out and can be harvested up to four times. After the last harvest you remove the whole plant.
One-time harvest
It is also possible a unique harvest. The entire plant is harvested. You can conserve leaves that you do not consume within the next few days.
Harvest tips:
Store and preserve spinach
Despite its nitrate content, spinach is very digestible. Fresh spinach stays in the fridge for only two or three days. It tastes best freshly cooked, either as steamed leaf spinach or in the pureed variety. Young leaves can be prepared as a salad.
Longer spinach can be preserved by freezing. For this, the spinach is blanched so that it collapses. After cooling in a water bath, the spinach can be frozen.
Tips & Tricks
After the first harvest, a light fertilizer stimulates the spinach to re-emerge. With the next harvest three weeks should be waited, so that they do not contain too much nitrate.