Growing Spinach At Home | Epic Guide to Make it Simple

Are you like Popeye and can’t get enough Spinach?  Do you need an easy guide on how to grow spinach at home?  Take a look at this epic guide on how to grow spinach from seed to table.

What could more satisfying than growing your own spinach at home?  You will discover just how easy and simple it is to grow spinach following the step by step instructions below.

It is as simple as this:

1. Prepare your soil for planting your spinach in an ideal location
2. Select your spinach seed variety
3. Sow your spinach seeds about 1 to 3 inches apart in proper spacing
4. Cover your spinach seeds with soil
5. Keep your soil moist with water until the spinach seeds germinate
6. Maintain your spinach plants with proper watering
7. Harvest your spinach leaves once they have fully matured to your variety

Types of Spinach to Grow at Home

Spinach is a cool season crop, which means it’s almost never too early to plant it. Spinach comes in two main types, smooth leaf varieties that are sweet, tender and perfect for salads and crinkle leaf types that have thicker crinkly leaves.

Spinach is normally grown directly from seed, but transplants can greatly speed up the process if you are approaching warmer temperatures or forgot to start from seed.

Look for sturdy compact plants that are deep green color and avoid tall leggy plants with weak, thin stems.

When to Grow Spinach at Home

Growing spinach is ideally done during the early spring or fall seasons.  This is due to spinach being a cooler climate vegetable.  It prefers the shorter days and cooler temps.  Popeye would not do good in the dead heat of summer.

Folks want to grow spinach all year round or most likely they try to grow it too late in the season. You are lucky if you get most spinach to go past early to mid-June.  It is tasty while you have it, but not able to be grown past June because of the fact that it bolts very quickly.

This seems to discourage a lot of gardeners, so just remember to get it in early or wait until the fall approaches so you are not disappointed. Cool soil is your friend when you are growing spinach at home.

You want to be able to work the soil, so generally daytime temps that are at or just above 40 degrees Fahrenheit is ideal for growing spinach.

The night time temps can still be freezing because spinach does tolerate the cold and is hardy in these temps, just as long as the daytime temps are above freezing.  The sweet spot is between February and March in most areas of the US.

It is best to transplant your spinach plants if you want to start earlier because they will not germinate as fast in freezing temps.

Best Soil for Growing Spinach

The ideal soil for growing spinach at home is one that is very well broken down, well-draining, and has lots of organic matter.  This is due to the fact that growing spinach requires a ton of nutrients.

Light and Water Requirements for Growing Spinach

Growing spinach requires a good amount of care.  You want to make sure that your spinach garden area gets at least 4-6 hours of sunlight.  Spinach does require mostly sunlight but can tolerate some shade.

Make sure that you shade your spinach seedlings if you are transplanting them outside for the first day or so.  You could also choose to plant them on a shady day to minimize its exposure to allow the spinach plant to settle in its new home.

It is always best to err on the side of caution when you first plant the spinach to give it a good start.

We discussed earlier the soil guidelines for spinach and how mixing in some sand will benefit the roots.  Spinach roots do not like to be soggy, so this soil mixture will go a long way to prevent this.

Growing spinach requires a light amount of water to grow successfully.  Just make sure you don’t water the spinach plants too much or let it dry out.

Steps to Grow Spinach from Seed

Hopefully, be now you have an idea of the best practices to ensure your spinach plants get a good start and continue growing.  Here is a step by step guide to planting your spinach seeds:

1. Prepare your soil for planting your spinach in an ideal location. Follow the guidelines above in the soil section to get an idea of the proper soil to grow spinach in
2. Select your spinach seed variety.  Make sure that you know how large your spinach plants will grow and the type you plant (savoyed vs flat leaf)
3. Sow your spinach seeds about 1 to 3 inches apart in proper spacing.  You can also plant in a seed tray and transplant out later. (skip to step 6 if you do this method)
4. Cover your spinach seeds with soil.  You can pat the dirt down gently to make sure the spinach seeds are covered.
5. Keep your soil moist with water until the spinach seeds germinate.  Germination usually takes about 7-10 days to germinate, but it varies with the soil temperature.
6. Maintain your spinach plants with proper watering. Follow the watering guidelines and don’t overwater them!
7. Harvest your spinach leaves once they have fully matured to your variety.

Check out this video if you want to see how to grow spinach from seeds:

Harvesting Spinach

Spinach can be harvested in as little as six weeks after planting the seeds. Begin harvesting when the spinach has put out about six to eight good size leaves. Use your fingertips to pinch off just the leaves you care to eat.   You can also use a small pair of shears to cut out the entire head.  Continue harvesting until the plants go to seed or bolts.

Check out this post here for more information on harvesting spinach

More Info

Spinach can be one of the vegetables that you should get in your garden during the cooler seasons.  It is so easy and versatile to grow.  Trust me that you will notice the difference in tasting your own spinach versus what you get in the bag at the supermarket.  Just grow spinach at home today!

We also have a monumental guide on Spinach that you will find here.