Hi,
Just planted Squash, Yellow Squash, Chard, Beans, Peas, Carrots, and Spinach. Sowed on 25 Aug. Both Squashes ready to be thinned, as are the Bush Beans. chard just peeking. Carrots, same. But I have seen hardly anything from the Spinach. I have not planted spinach before. Is it a slow germinator? Anyone?
Thanks
W Jones
Spinach
Spinach is a crop that prefers cool weather. Planting it a bit later is usually more successful. It has shallow roots and needs plenty of water.
Good to know. I'd put in pole beans and squash (d@%^ borers) and was going to go ahead with some spinach but now I'll wait a few weeks. The moon starts to wane today anyway.
I was able to obtain some cuttings of a vining spinach from my hort. greenhouse at school. It is doing great, of course it is in a controled environment. I plan on moving it to the yard later in the fall.
There are two spinach-like vegetables that do well in summertime conditions but are in completely different botanical families. Malabar spinach is a vine and there is a red version. New Zealand spinach is bushier and looks more like its namesake. Our native lamb's-quarters is delicious cooked and the spicy arugula (roquette) used raw in salads is even better cooked. Then there's my favorite - Swiss chard. It's perennial here - surviving hard freezes. I usually pull it out after three years when the leaves begin to decline in size. I grow the variety "Bright Lights" (five colors). Delicious, and the brightly colored stalks and glossy dark green leaves are pretty in flower beds. Yuska
thanks all
got the packet from Northhaven gardens - packet said to plant in late August ... so I did.
Okay, I guess I'll learn from that one.
Will
There is some kind of wild spinach that grows very heartily in Texas...my neighbor always offers us cuttings but I've seen how invasive it gets! I saw it available at Rainbow Gardens to....a dark rich red thick vine and thicker spinach leaves....
The seeds you planted may yet come along. As to the packet instructions, many retailers actually get some of their supplies from wholesale growers in various parts of the country, so the seeds you bought may have been harvested where August heat is much less intense, and where fall planting does begin.
Yuska,
Yeah, I agree.
It's just that it was specific for my zone on the map. I am getting sprouting ... and I have a very well prepped bed, including irrigation (auto and hand) ... The soil quality is excellent (Aug 25 was my sow date and today - 7th - my squash is four to six inches tall already. The bush beans have thrown clods of soil two to three inches away).
I am sure I am going to get something, the question is just the yeild. We shall see.
W J
I thought of taking pictures, but I think the description is adequate.
I hesitate to buy seeds from other areas (like the north) because our area is so unique. Many will grow here but differently. I wish online seed companies would post their address or the area the seeds were produced in. There are also very few southern heirloom seed companies which is unusual.
Tir_Na_Nog Is this photo the wild spinach you're thinking of? If so, it is the Malabar that Yuska mentioned. Not invasive if not allowed to reseed. I like the leaves raw in salads, etc and know folks that cook it like spinach.
podster,
sure is! it is such a pretty plant!!!! but oh yes, the neighbor lets it go to seed for sure. he gave me the purple and green seeds, not sure which was ready for planting, but i was to scared to try it again as it's taking over his yard. =) but it is a beautiful and HEAVY vine!
It is pretty, the purple seeds are ripened. I keep mine in a pot on the patio, any volunteers are easily pulled up. Sounds like you have a lazy gardener for a neighbor...
Podster....you might think so but he LOVES plants...I mean almost every weekend he is putting in something else. He'll dig up things in nature and not know WHAT they are but bring them home and pot them. He just loves to let things grow grow grow. It's not my style to grow things so frenzied (he has lawn but really has plants/bushes/trees planted all throughout here and there) but to look at his yard you'd have to admit it's a "garden" for sure.
So do you plant the green or purple spinach seeds?
I am so glad to find others that have dealt with spinach in Texas. First off this spring/summer I tried some New Zealand spinach with horrible results. I soaked the seeds as they said for about 8-12 hours in water and then planted them according to to instructions. Well................would you believe NOT ONE SEEMED TO GERMINATE. After reading more about spinach this summer, it seems that it may have been too late in the season and too warm for proper germination.
So, I started looking and looking for something that I could grow in our heat and humidity for a lettuce alternative as well as a tasty cooked green. I recently found a great book specifically written for Southeast Texas and believe it or not, more directly for the Houston, Texas area. I knew that most all lettuce was not up to our sort of summers as well as many other alternatives, including spinach. However, after reading about the New Zealand stuff I thought I had a winner. Especially after reading how in some coastal areas it is more of a nuisance. Well, thanks to this book by, Bob Randall, Phd., I found several alternatives. His favourite is one he refers to in his book as "Sweet Potato Spinach". He almost anecdotally discusses it without any reference to its botantical name. I have looked and looked for it on the Internet with virtually no results. I thought I had found out what it was after discovering Malabar spinach. However, he actually mentions Malabar spinach later in his book, "Year Round Vegetables, Fruits, and Flowers For Metro Houston". It must be something similar but not the same. The only place he indicates that you can obtain Sweet Potato Spinach is from some festival they have in an older section of Houston that use to be know as the 6th Ward.
If anyone in Dave's Garden has heard about Sweet Potato Spinach I would love to hear more about it and where it can be obtained. If I happen to find out as well, I will certainly leave a posting. When you read the narrative in his book it really "fits the bill" for both a heat/humid hearty green not only for salads but cooked as well. As a matter of fact, if anyone has any recommendations about a durable salad green for Southeast Texas I would be grateful. So far outside of Malabar spinach, the only other salad green I have been able "kinda" grow was a lettuce that had done okay earlier this summer called Royal Oak Leaf lettuce.
I am really looking forward finding someone that may have also heard of this seemingly unusual plant/vegetable.
Regards,
Tomatomaniac
Ohhh sweet potato spinach sounds awesome!
I bought some large bag spinach from Sam's....the brand Dole was SO GOOD, it lasted a long time after purchase...then bought some Organic Newman's Own Spinach and it had other things that got stuck in the bag....and wilted quickly.....just a tip for people buying it already grown...Dole was great!
I've not heard of sweet potato spinach, but I have read that the sweet potato vine itself is edible,and considered a delicacy. The reference I came across was years ago, and I'm not sure I still have it my notes. If I find it I'll post.
Yuska, That is what I think he was referring to by sweet potato spinach. In the book tomatomaniac mentioned - "Year Round Vegetables, Fruits, and Flowers For Metro Houston" by Bob Randall - he mentions under the sweet potatoes " You can eat the leaves! You can harvest four inches of vine tips and cook like spinach or like water spinach. Harvest tips no more than three times or the potatoes will suffer." Haven't ever tried that one...
Tir_Na_Nog, The purple seed are the ripe ones. I allow them to dry and plant them. pod
podster, you can say what you like, but I have Randall's book here in front of me on page 193, and I quote:
Comments: Sweet potato spinach is a close relative of ordinary sweet potatoes, and a different species from Southeast Asian spinach. Sweet potato spinach has leaves that look like ordinary sweet potato leaves like Beauregarde but it has no edible tuber. It grows easily in any soil, and most years when it gets warm in spring, it will come back from last year's planting. This is probably the best summer green. It is more prolific, easier to grow, harvest and prepare than Southeast Asian spinach, and not related to a banned spinach.
podster, you might be able to eat any sweet potato leaves as you mentioned, but unless you have a different copy of Randall's book, this is what he wrote. I have .no idea how you or anyone else could extrapolate from what he wrote anything else. This is similar to a Japanese developed turnip green with no edible tuber either. This is why I am so interested in this particular unusual variety of "green".
If you will read his book, if you don't have it, as I just recently purchased mine, or read from the aforementioned quote: Sweet potato spinach has leaves that look like ordinary sweet potato leaves like Beauregarde but it has no edible tuber. What Randall is refering to here is NOT JUST PICKING THE LAST FEW LEAVES OFF OF ANY OLD SWEET POTATO PLANT. This was the entire substance of the query I origianlly posted!
If you CAN safely eat ordinary sweet potato leaves I might just try them as I have a patch of them growing now. However, the fact still remains from Randall's book he is refering to something completely different....AS HE STATES IN BLACK AND WHITE IN HIS BOOK.
I really hope some one might find out just what he is talking about, as I will continue to look myself. BTW the Southeast Asian spinach is the water spinach you were refering to. It is actually banned in many areas due to its aggressiveness. Also, this is all mentioned, as well, on page 191 regarding "The Sweet Potato Family". I quote: The Convolvulaceae family of plants contains the sweet potato , the Cuban white sweet potato bonaito, the inedible-tubered sweet potato spinach, and the Southeast Asian "spinach" variously called water spinach, eng tsai, rau muong, kangkung and water convolvovus in cataloges.
Regards,
tomatomaniac
Tomatomaniac ~ there was no intention of stepping on anyones toes... sorry.
I have had my copy for many years. Mine is obviously a different edition. It is marked the tenth edition copyright 1998. If you recently acquired your copy, it has no doubt been updated. That which I put in quotations in the previous post was on p. 149 under the sweet potato listing, marked #9 (1997) Sweet Potatoes. He has far more info regarding sweet potatoes but the comment I posted was in reference only to Yuska's comment and certainly not to question anyones integrity. As is Mr. Randalls' style, I am sure he has researched more thoroughly and updated since this printing. Sorry to have hijacked this thread with sweet potatoes. Now back to the spinach. pod
My book, 12th edition, mentions this under sweet potatoes as well. This is not a matter of integrity, it is a matter of ACCURACY. It frustrates me when someone "derails" a thread with statements based on information over 6 years old is all. Your comments are almost directly out of his section on sweet potatoes. I appreciate you bringing this out as I quite honestly missed that part as I was more focused on majour sections relating to greens. I do love sweet potatoes unto themselves, but this now means I can plant a sweet potatoe like I did as a kid and eat the leaves to my hearts content. To heck with the tubers!.......LOL
I hope that one of us, or anyone on DG's, can actually find out what Dr. Randall is on about. It is so frustrating that someone with a Phd. could be so non-specific. Perhaps this is from my research background in Microbiology, Chemistry, and even as a Dentist for 25+ years.
Thanks for your reply,
tomatomaniac
This message was edited Sep 12, 2006 9:21 AM