Growing Spinach And Tasting The Success
One of my new year resolutions is to grow at least 5 different vegetables/fruits/greens this year. The garden, at the beginning of the year was filled with unwanted shrubs and never-dying weeds and 3 feet grass. So this resolution, I thought, should help me take this as a challenge and fix it. Also, this is yet another baby step towards making my garden a better place eventually.
At the beginning of the year, I listed a lot of vegetables like
- Carrots
- Potatoes
- Tomatoes
- Radish
- Beets
- Chillies
- Peppers
- Okra
- Aubergine
- Beans
- Onions
- Garlic
- Spinach
- Kohlrabi
- Cauliflower
- Strawberries
- Gooseberries
- Raspberries
- Plums This went never ending.
It took a couple of months to realise that its not possible for me, alone, to get this done in a year. I burnt my fingers in 2020 by biting more than what I could chew. So, I downsized my ideas and downsized my plans, significantly. And that’s how I landed to 5, just 5 from the above list.
And this post is about how I successfully grew Spinach from the seeds. I purchased seeds from a fellow gardener almost 18 months ago, Jan 2022 to be precise. But I wasn’t prepared at all in 2022 to handle the garden after 2020 disaster. So I spent the whole of 2022 to educate and prepare myself.
Sometime in October 2022 is when I decided to start the process. To begin with I picked exactly two seeds. This is to ensure that I have some more seeds, should the plants die. This is also a learning from 2020.
Germinating the Seeds
I followed the following steps very diligently. - Cover the seeds using a tissue paper.
- Spray some water on the tissue paper.
- Seal the moist tissue paper inside a zip lock cover.
- Keep this cover in a warm place.
- Forget it for a week
Voila, the seeds, if alive would have germinated by now. And this process works for most of the seeds. And in my case too, the seeds germinated. That was a little success for me.
Sapling Care
It was peak winter in the UK and they needed special attention. I moved the germinated seeds into tiny pots with containing compost. I then wrapped the pots using cling sheets and kept them directly under the radiator to have some warmth. They did grow, but at a very slow pace, winter is to blame.
By Jan 2023, they grew up to 10cm. However they started to wilt. One of the plants appeared as if it can die any day. I did share the photos of this wilting/dying plants on the social media and got various responses. I tried almost every idea - I reduced the water intake, changed the soil base, added plant food, moved them under sunlight/radiator. I just noticed that the plants aren’t recovering at all. But the good news at that time was, they did not give up too.
I continued doing the same for around 6 weeks and then the plants started to recover slowly and progressed well, again in a very low pace.
In March 2023 I thought I will keep these plants inside the diy greenhouse with diy thermostat attached heater. To be on the safer side, I only moved one of the plants. The faulty thermostat heater the greenhouse up over 35 degrees Celsius burning the apical stem. Luckily I moved the plant on time. It did take couple of weeks to recover.
Good News
The weather in the UK started to get better in May. The day time temperature was good enough for me to move the plants. The everyday routine was the move the plant outdoors in the morning and move them back indoors during sunsets and during the occasional rains.
By June, my birth month, the plants did so well, that they were almost ready to pick. So when my wife asked me on what I’d like to have for my birthday, I didn’t even have a second thought. I instantly asked if she can cook spinach for me.
Long story short, I had the best lunch on my birthday!
Update: Until now (early July), we’ve cooked Spinach thrice and have picked at least 450g. The plants are doing well 🤞