I Direct Seeded a Row of Spinach

Bob Bauer

April 24, 2017 (Last Updated: March 06, 2023) | Reading Time: 1 minutes

April 24, 2017

I direct seeded a row of spinach today because the Perpetual Spinach is so slow. I've only gotten 3 gallon size Ziploc bags of it from the 18 plants in the greenhouse, as opposed to 8 bags of lettuce from the opposite side of the aisle. The outdoor direct seeded row is only about 3" tall so they will take awhile. They produce long stems before the leaves form which is cutting down on harvesting..

Maybe as the season progresses they will be more prolific, but I want spinach now. The garden cats have done a great job of keeping the birds away so we have plenty of Swiss chard this year. It's kind of a backupÃ¢ÂÂ spinach and is much appreciated..

April 25, 2017

The fourth planting of lettuce came up like a hedge. I think I seeded too thickly. I can thin them or let them grow and harvest them with a scissors. I've let spinach grow too close together and enjoyed picking by the handful instead of one leaf at a time. I've still got half a pack of lettuce seeds left, and if I keep planting half a pack at a time, it should last me forever..

I started scarifying the cracked dirt around my mounds and realized why I was doing it. The cracks would provide a cool get away all summer long for the slugs, pill bugs and earwigs. I'd rather they travel some distance from the plants to nap, because it increases the odds of becoming prey..

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