Spinach
Spinacia oleracea
Cool-season leaf that carpets the ground beneath taller crops.
Spacing & sowing
- Plant spacing
- 7.1 in
- In-row spacing
- 5.9 in
- Between rows
- 11.8 in
- Square-foot density
- 9 per square
- Sow depth
- 0.8 in
Calendar (from your frost dates)
- Sow direct
- 35 days before the last spring frost
- First harvest
- 40 days after the last spring frost
- Harvest ends
- 7 days after the first fall frost
Growing
- Type
- Vegetable · Grown as an annual
- Botanical family
- Chenopod (beet & chard family)
- Sunlight
- Full sun to part shade
- Watering
- Moderate
- Soil
- Rich, moisture-retentive
- Feeding
- Leafy greens & lawns
- Frost tolerant
- Yes
- Cool-season crop
- Yes — takes a second fall window
- Season
- Cool Season
- Harvest type
- Single Harvest
- Start from
- seed
Growth stages
- 0 d Sow seeds
- 10 d Germination
- 56 d Harvest
Harvest
- When
- First true-spinach pickings come 6–8 weeks from sowing; spring and autumn sowings do best, as summer heat and long days trigger bolting. Autumn sowings overwinter for a very early spring crop.
- What to look for
- Leaves are ready from 5 cm (baby) to full hand-size; pick while thick, dark and crisp. A rising central stem and arrow-shaped new leaves mean bolting has begun — cut the whole plant at once, as leaves turn bitter fast afterwards.
- How to harvest
- Pinch or snip outer leaves individually at the base of the stalk, always leaving the central rosette of young leaves to grow on. For baby leaf, shear whole rows 2–3 cm above the crown and let them regrow.
- How often
- A classic cut-and-come-again: pick outer leaves weekly, or shear baby-leaf rows every 2–3 weeks for 3–4 cuts. Regular picking delays bolting; take no more than half the plant at once.
- Storing the crop
- Very perishable — unwashed leaves keep 3–5 days in a bag in the fridge. Spinach freezes well: blanch 1 minute, squeeze dry and freeze in balls; it cooks down roughly 10:1, so pick far more than seems sensible.
Pests & problems
- Leaf miners Larvae that tunnel pale wandering trails or blotches inside the leaf itself. Pick off and destroy mined leaves; damage is usually cosmetic.
- Slugs & snails Ragged holes and silvery trails on seedlings and soft young growth, worst in damp weather. Use beer traps, wool pellets, or torchlight hand-picking; keep beds clear of daytime hiding places.
- Birds Pigeons strip brassica leaves; other birds take fruit, buds, and seedlings. Netting fixed taut over hoops is the only reliable protection.
Garden allies
Beneficial predators that hunt this plant's pests — grow their favourite flowers nearby to recruit them. companion plant
- Beneficial nematodes Steinernema & Heterorhabditis spp.Hunts Slugs & snails
Microscopic worms watered onto damp soil that hunt down soil-dwelling grubs and release a bacterium that kills them within days. Timing is the whole thing: warm, damp soil and a small target grub, which means late summer for most of what they are used against.
- Centipedes ChilopodaHunts Slugs & snails
Flat, fast, one pair of legs to a segment — and a predator, unlike the slow round millipede it is constantly confused with. It hunts slugs, cutworms, springtails and woodlice by night under mulch and stones. Learn the difference and leave this one alone.
- Frogs & toads AnuraHunts Slugs & snails
A resident toad works the beds every night for slugs, cutworms, and weevils. Recruit them with water — even a sunken basin pond — plus damp shade and an upturned-pot toad house; skip the slug pellets that poison their prey.
- Garden birds PasseriformesHunts Slugs & snails
Both things are true: birds strip your currants and a brood of blue tits takes several thousand caterpillars out of one fruit tree in a fortnight. Net what you must and welcome them everywhere else — a nest box near the apples is worth more than a spray.
- Ground beetle CarabidaeHunts Slugs & snails
Fast, glossy night hunters that patrol the soil surface for slugs, cutworms, and root-fly larvae. Give them daytime cover — thick perennial edges, stepping stones, a log — and skip the tillage that wrecks their burrows.
- Hedgehog Erinaceus europaeusHunts Slugs & snails
A European animal, and worth saying so plainly: there are no hedgehogs in North America, and the ally that does the same night shift here is the toad, the opossum or the ground beetle. Where they do occur, cut a gap in the fence and skip the pellets.
- Parasitic wasps Braconidae & TrichogrammaHunts Leaf miners
Tiny, stingless wasps that lay eggs in or on caterpillars, aphids, and moth eggs — the white cocoons riding a hornworm are their calling card, so leave that caterpillar be. Umbel flowers with shallow nectar keep the adults fuelled.
- Rove beetle StaphylinidaeHunts Slugs & snails
Slim, quick beetles with short wing cases that hunt in soil and litter, taking root-fly eggs and larvae, fungus-gnat larvae, and mites. Mulch and undisturbed ground keep them resident year-round.
- Salamanders & newts CaudataHunts Slugs & snails
Damp-loving hunters of slugs, worms, woodlice and beetle larvae that spend the day under a log or a stone and work the beds at night. Companions to the toads: they want the same damp shade, the same log pile, and the same absence of slug pellets.
- Snakes & lizards Colubridae & PhrynosomatidaeHunts Slugs & snails
A garter snake works the beds for slugs and voles and a fence lizard clears grasshoppers off a sunny wall. Almost every snake a gardener meets is harmless and useful; give them a log pile, a warm flat stone and a bit of cover and they stay.
Germination & growth
- Germination temp
- 46–64°F
- Min soil temp
- 39 °F
- Photoperiod
- day neutral
Companion planting
Good neighbors
Did you know?
Spinach's famous iron content was exaggerated for decades — partly thanks to Popeye.
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's herbarium at cottagegardencompanion.com