Overwintering Spinach
In these days of climate change and Michigan’s unpredictable springs, I’ve had the most success planting spinach in late fall to over winter. With just a bit of minimal protection the spinach seems to do great. I’ve been saving my seed from the best overwintered spinach for 2 years now. My spinach survived -10 degrees Fahrenheit early this month and is doing great now that it got a few days of warmth and sun.
Basic protection: I put old shower doors over raised cedar bed.Doors don't even cover the entire bed, and snow covered the glass most of the winter. A proper cold frame should yield much better results, but my Spinach is still doing great.
Wow. Not bad!
Had you considered filling the oncovered space with leaves to form an insulation blanket? That may even work better than if you had that side covered with a shower door.
Our Brussel Sprouts that were growing too slowly have survived 0 degree F so far. Though a little frostbit! The sprouts are still only marble size.
But no, I would never have thought of doing this with Spinach!
Thanks!!
I plan on building a few proper cold frames and doing row covers this next season. Last year I was harvesting spinach the begging of April until late June and saved the seed once it bolted. I think I’d be able to harvest from February until June with the right planning and cover.
Spinach is one of my favorite greens. Its seems like I couldn't get it to grow properly for a couple of years, but now its one of our staples. We do have an unheated high tunnel to grow it in though, to extend the season.
Yeah, it’s one of my favorites too. So diverse and flavorful. Can’t get ebough of it sautéed with a bit of salt and butter. We juice it, add it to smoothies and eat it fresh in salads as well. I’ve had zero success growing it in the spring. Maybe there are some climates where that works well, but not here, unless it’s overwintered. Fall is usually the tastiest spinach with the chill bringing out all the sugar.
The best spinach we've ever grown was a handful of seeds just tossed in an old parsley bed and raked in. No forking, no digging, no weeding, no hoeing, no mulch, no cover, no raised bed, no nothing. Bare soil. 30 cm of snow covered it until mid March and then, in April, there were those massive spinach plants.
That was 5-6 years ago. Since then we've tried all the "pampering" methods, row covers, hoop tunnels, deep mulch, spring planting, autumn planting... And no, the results were miserable compared to what we got using the STUN method!
I had a similar experience. The best spinach I had was grown by just throwing the seed on top of about an inch of compost and raking in, in the fall. It was the first compost I had ever made actually. The spinach was just amazing. I still haven’t been able to grow it so flavorful and sweet.
I've never tried amy over winter crops. But I definately want to get started this coming winter. I' ll be trying spinach. I had never considered it for over wintering.
I sow mine around the time of the first frost to overwinter. You could do a bit earlier.
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I grew some collard greens that were both extremely heat and drought tolerant, and held up better in the cold than the kale. Something to think about for the wild swings, extreme weather, and stuck weather patterns of climate change.