Sowing spinach, how do you do it? It may seem a bit challenging, but it’s actually not at all! As long as you make sure you have everything you need, sow spinach in your vegetable garden without worry. We explain here the best way to sow spinach!
What is spinach?
A vegetable with a leafy green color, spinach is a member of the Amaranthaceae plant family. It has long been cultivated for food and is native to Central and Southwest Asia. It is a tremendously good source of vitamins and minerals such as vitamin K, vitamin A, vitamin C, folic acid, iron and calcium, spinach is known for its high nutritional value. Moreover, it contains a lot of fiber and only a few calories. In addition to often being used in salads, sandwiches, soups and other foods, spinach can be eaten fresh or cooked. It is an easy-to-grow vegetable and therefore ideal for your vegetable garden.
Sowing spinach: what do you need?
Spinach can actually be grown year-round and is very suitable for impatient people. Because, within 4 to 6 weeks you already have harvest if temperatures are perfect. So in winter, it may take longer. But, you will need some things to start sowing spinach.
- Spinach seeds as in our seed market.
- Location: spinach likes to be in sun or partial shade.
- Soil: You need well-tilled soil.
- Water: spinach likes to be well watered.
- Garden tools: not essential but a rake to prepare the soil in your vegetable garden is handy!
- Plant nutrition and fertilization
If you have this in good order in your vegetable garden, then you can start sowing! Depending on when you sow, sow your spinach indoors, outdoors or in the greenhouse about 15 to 30 inches apart. Make sure the soil is airy and not soaked with moisture, spinach does not like that. A consistently moist soil is sufficient.
You can easily fertilize spinach with worm manure, for example, or other universal plant food.
TIP: be careful when adding nitrate. Too much added nitrate can convert the plant to Nitrite, which is not good for humans.
Spinach sowing in brief
Growing spinach takes some doing. So that’s why we show you here in brief the best way to sow spinach:
In brief:
- Choose quality Spinach seeds
- Choose the location in your garden that gets full sun or partial shade and has good, water-retaining soil.
- Prepare the soil by removing weeds. It is also advisable to add compost or manure to the soil.
- Sow spinach in seed trays in the greenhouse or directly in the vegetable garden.
- Make sure the spinach seeds get enough water so that the soil is consistently moist until they germinate (often between 7 – 10 days).
- Once the seedlings are large enough you can thin them out so that they are 15 cm apart.
- Water the spinach adequately and give balanced plant food every 4 – 6 weeks (or recommend your plant food package).
- Harvest your spinach when it is big enough to eat.
Follow these simple steps and before you know it, you’ll be harvesting your delicious, homegrown spinach from the vegetable garden!
