Gadenin日本語Get the appThin in two stages
Sowing thickly and thinning in stages gives a more even crop than sowing at the final spacing. Seedlings support each other early on, and the thinnings are worth eating, so the discarded plants are not wasted.
| Stage | When | Spacing after | Do at the same time |
|---|---|---|---|
| First | Seed leaves open, one or two true leaves | About an inch (3 cm) | Weed and draw soil to the plants |
| Second | Three or four true leaves | 2 to 2.5 in (5 to 6 cm) | First feed and hoe |
| For large plants | Five or six true leaves | 4 to 6 in (10 to 15 cm) | For overwintering and cold sweetening |
Thinnings with two or more true leaves are worth cooking. Think of it as recovering the seed you deliberately oversowed.
Which to pull and which to keep
Decide what you are keeping before you pull anything. Keep plants with dark, upright leaves and a firm base, and take out anything stretched, yellowing or misshapen. Hold the soil down around the keeper as you pull, so it is not lifted with the neighbor.
Thin on a day when the soil is evenly moist. In bone dry soil the roots come up together, and in mud the plant you are keeping is left loose.
Feed from three or four true leaves
Spinach makes leaf continuously over a short season, so the feeding has to arrive before it runs short. Put the first feed on with the second thinning and adjust the number of feeds to the season.
| Sowing | Number of feeds | When |
|---|---|---|
| Spring and summer | One | At the second thinning, three or four true leaves |
| Autumn | One or two | At the second thinning, and again two weeks later |
| Overwintering | Two | Before winter, and again as growth restarts |
Feed before it runs short. Once the color has drained out of the leaves, feeding will not bring that plant back to size.
Reading the leaves
Leaf symptoms in spinach are specific enough to tell apart, but several can appear together. Suspect pH first, then water, then feeding, and you will usually be right.
| Symptom | Likely cause | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Whole plant pale green and small | Short of nitrogen, or acid soil | Feed. If nothing changes, measure the pH |
| Yellow between the veins of older leaves | Short of magnesium | Use a dolomitic lime next crop |
| New leaves coming out pale | Over-limed, cannot take up iron | Stop liming and add leaf mold |
| Leaf tips browning | Dry soil and concentrated fertilizer | Water and skip a feed |
Watering changes after germination
Until germination the whole job is keeping the surface damp. Afterwards it reverses: water less often and more deeply, so the taproot goes down. Frequent light watering keeps the roots at the surface and the plant suffers in any dry spell.
Overwintering plants need very little water. Wet soil in cold weather damages the roots, and the plants come away badly in spring.
Hoeing and the crown
Hoeing between the rows at each thinning kills weeds and lets air into the soil, and drawing a little soil towards the plants steadies them. Do not bury the growing point.
Stop hoeing as harvest approaches. Cutting roots at that stage makes the leaves wilt, and the quality of what you cut suffers.