Spinach "Winterriesen", 2 g, AGRONOM

• Species: Spinacia oleracea — spinach
• Variety: "Winterriesen" — hardy, large-leaved
• Producer: AGRONOM, Agrofirma Sėklos (Lithuania)
• Packet: 2 g (~200 seeds, 3–4 m of row)
• Ready: 30–40 days after emergence
• Spring sowing: April–May, every two weeks
• Overwintering sowing: August, picked from late April
• Depth: 2–3 cm
• Spacing: 8–10 cm between plants, 20–25 cm between rows
• Position: sun or part shade; part shade only in summer heat
• Soil: rich, moist, pH 6.5–7.5
• Hardiness: takes −8 °C, overwinters under snow
• Uses: salad, braising, soup, freezing

Sow early and sow late, but not in midsummer. Spinach is a long-day plant: sown in June or July it bolts within a week and gives no leaf. Sow in April–May and again in August. For hot weather choose chard or New Zealand spinach instead.

The August sowing pays best. Sow between the 10th and 25th of August. The plant makes 4–6 leaves before the cold, overwinters under snow and starts again the moment the snow goes. A fleece cover brings the spring cut forward by another week.

Feeding. Spinach loves nitrogen — and spinach is also what accumulates nitrate. Give compost in autumn, do not apply mineral nitrogen just before cutting, and leave a week between feeding and picking.

Watering. Keep the soil evenly moist: drought makes the plant bolt and the leaf bitter. In dry spells water 2–3 times a week, in the morning.

Cutting. Take the outer leaves at 8–10 cm and the centre pushes out new ones. Or cut the whole rosette at 2–3 cm and it will regrow for one more cut. Once a flower stem shows the leaf is already bitter — clear the bed.

Watch out for. Beet leaf miner (tunnels inside the leaf — pick off damaged leaves and cover the bed with fine mesh), powdery mildew in crowded rows and aphids. Do not follow beetroot or chard with spinach: they share the same diseases.