Good-bye Winter Spinach

One of the crops I think many people have enjoyed is the Winter crop of spinach we try to grow every year.  Obviously, the idea that we have something green and fresh during the months of November, December, March, April and early May is very appealing.  But, that's really only part of the story.

A spinach plant deciding March is an ok time to grow.

A Winter crop of spinach at the Genuine Faux Farm is planted in the Fall, typically late August to early September in the field just outside our movable high tunnel.  Once we get to the end of October, the high tunnel is moved over the plot where the spinach was planted.  This protects the spinach from some of the harsh weather and allows us to get a little bit of extra Fall growth so we can harvest it into December.  For the most part, spinach won't grow much once we get into mid-November.  So, it might be easiest to consider it a way to 'store' our spinach until we are ready to pick it.

Our Fall/early Winter harvests are quite tasty and very much appreciated.  But, there are often other crops available at that time, so it competes a bit for attention.

Spinach outside the high tunnel looking in

On the other hand, when the spinach starts to grow again in late February and into March, we (and many other people) are very much in the mood for fresh veg of most any type.  And, the cold weather growth helps the spinach to set more sugars.  This makes it some of the sweetest and tastiest spinach you're going to eat!

Spinach in the high tunnel and happy for some shelter

Usually, the spinach starts to bolt once we enter the month of May, but we're often willing to pull another pick or two off of the plants.  Essentially, the rule of thumb is for us to determine how efficient harvest is.  If it takes too much time to harvest because it takes too long to identify and pull good leaves, then it is time to take the crop out.  That day was today in the high tunnel.  That row of spinach is no more.  Alas for all of us!

So, wait a minute?  How many times do you pick your spinach?!
Hey!  We're glad you got the courage to jump in and ask a question.  Well done!
(Ok ok.  So someone asked us this at farmers' market a couple of weeks ago.  It's a good question, so we thought we'd pretend the blog was more interactive.)

Ignore the weeds, you should see two sets of 2 rows if you look carefully

In order to answer the question, let me first say that we use the 6 row seeder to put the spinach in the ground.  We only use 2 rows of the six, but we run two parallel beds when we plant in the high tunnel.  So, in effect, there are 4 "rows" of spinach.  Typically, we pick two of the rows at a time because that's about all one person will feel like picking in cold weather.  So, each recorded harvest is about half of the entire planted crop.

We typically are able to run 2 complete harvests in the Fall and five or six in the Spring.  Our Fall harvest came to 41 pounds of spinach and the Spring harvest reached 82 pounds of spinach.  We feel that 123 pounds of spinach from one planting is exceptional.

How do you harvest your spinach?
Now, for the truth in advertising.  We harvest our spinach by hand.  We do NOT cut the plants down with a tool.  Instead, we hand pick each leaf.  I am positive that some people who run farming operations such as ours are cringing and I can understand why that is.  However, this is a pay now versus pay later proposition.  First, if I clear cut the row, then I have to spend time in the cleaning and packing phase removing any leaves that don't pass inspection and any weeds that might have come along for the ride.  I've harvested and cleaned both ways on our farm and I find this to be most efficient and the least annoying to me. And, since I'm the primary spinach harvester, that's really what counts.

Leaves are harvested into tubs.  Once a tub is full, we can pretty much guess that we've harvested five pounds of spinach.  The spinach is soaked in cold water for about five minutes for cleaning and cooling - unless it is cold outside, then it is only for cleaning.  We then fill the big 'salad spinner' to spin the leaves dry and we bag them in produce bags at about 1/3 pound per bag.  This process can be extremely fast and, I feel, makes up for slower harvest time.  

Clearly, we couldn't increase the scale of production too much unless we found a way to speed up the harvest process.  And, if we did increase the scale and implement more efficient harvest processes, we wouldn't see nearly as many harvests and we wouldn't likely get the yield we get now.  Further, one of the reasons people like our spinach so much is the fact that we tend to focus on providing spinach with larger leaves that have more substance and taste. 

What about field planted spinach?
Over the years, we have had limited success with field planted spinach. Some of this has to do with our farm.  It is extremely difficult for us to plant an early crop of spinach in the field.  Usually, we can't plant until it is a bit late to get much more than one harvest before plants start to bolt (go to seed).  And, we often don't have time to hit the perfect August planting window for a good field crop in the Fall.

We will certainly experiment with it a bit more this year.  But, really - the reason the Winter spinach crop is so special is because it grows at a time when there is little else to harvest and enjoy.  We can give it the time and attention because there aren't other crops competing with it.  So, we'll play with spinach during other seasons a bit, but the Winter crop is where we'll invest the most effort.

Here's looking to a great growing season - right up until the last harvest in December of our next Winter spinach crop.