Anyone who has successfully grown spinach can look forward to a rich harvest. Here you will learn everything about the right time and procedure for harvesting.
If you grow spinach in your own garden, you don't have to wait long for your vegetables. After only six to eight weeks, the spinach is ready to be harvested. We show how the harvest succeeds and give tips for storing the spinach afterwards.
Harvest spinach
The great thing about spinach (Spinacia oleracea) is that it is ready to harvest quickly and you can harvest it several times. Once the leaves are about four inches long, they can be cut off. The small, tender leaves have a particularly mild taste and are perfect for eating raw, for example in a salad. If you plan to process your spinach, it's best to let it sit for the full 6 to 8 weeks to get the largest leaves possible.
When is spinach harvested?
Spinach can be grown almost all year round, so the harvest takes place at different times of the year. Spinach needs about two to three months to ripen. For example, if you sowed between February and April, the harvest will take place between May and June. If sown in April to June, it can be harvested from June to August. Sowings from July to September are ripe in September to December and if they are sown in September to October the spinach will be ready next spring. You can also find more information about growing spinach here.
When harvesting spinach, it is important to keep the right time. In general, only spinach that has not yet blossomed is harvested, as flowering spinach tastes bitter. In addition, the last fertilization at harvest should be at least two to three weeks ago, since spinach stores plenty of nitrate in its leaves. How high the nitrate content is in the plant also has to do with the time of day. Spinach harvested early in the day has significantly more nitrate than when harvested in the late afternoon. This has to do with the exposure, since active photosynthesis verifiably increases the nitrate content in the leafReduced.
How is spinach harvested?
There are two ways of harvesting spinach: either the individual leaves around the heart are cut off with a sharp knife, or the entire spinach plant including the root is pulled out. With the first variant you get the so-called leaf spinach. Here the heart stops during the harvest and sprout again, which means that the plant can be harvested up to four times a year. If you have enough spinach plants in the garden, you can of course cut off the entire plant. If the spinach plant is harvested with the root, it is referred to as root spinach. Another option is harvesting in stages. Only individual leaves are harvested from each plant.
Storing and preserving spinach
The freshly harvested spinach is best eaten immediately, but it can also be stored in the refrigerator for two days. The best way to do this is to wrap it in a wet cloth so that the leaves don't start to wither so quickly. If you want to store spinach for a longer period of time, you should use other methods.
The easiest way to store longer is to freeze the spinach. For this purpose, it is either frozen directly raw or blanched first. Blanching lowers the nitrate content and ensures that taste and color are largely retained. If you want to freeze the spinach fresh, it's a good idea to wash the spinach thoroughly beforehand to remove any soil. For blanching, the spinach is also first sorted and washed. Then it is placed in a sieve and held over boiling water for a few minutes. Meanwhile, have a bowl of ice water ready. After blanching, the spinach is held in the ice water for about 10 seconds to interrupt the cooking process. Before the spinach is packed in freezer bags, it is a good idea to carefully squeeze out excess water. This will make it less mushy when thawed later. Before it ends up in the freezer, it is best to let the spinach cool down a bit in the fridge. The same applies to spinach that has already been cooked: You can also freeze this, but it should also cool down in the fridge first.
How is spinach preserved?
- Freezing is the easiest method
- Wash the spinach first and blanch if necessary
- Hold in ice water for 10 seconds after blanching
- Squeeze the spinach, leave to cool and pack in a freezer bag
- Cooked spinach can also be frozen after cooling
Ingredients and uses of spinach
Spinach is rich in vitamins B and C as well as provitamin A. It also contains many minerals such as calcium, potassium and iron. However, the fact that spinach contains an extremely large amount of iron is an old wives' tale. Nuts and legumes, for example, beat the iron content of spinach by far. People with kidney problems in particular should mainly consume spinach in autumn and winter, when the oxalic acid content is lower than in the summer months. In general, affected people should refrain from excessive spinach consumption, as this has a negative effect on kidney stone formation.
When preparing spinach, you should always wash it thoroughly to remove the sand on the stems. In the kitchen, spinach is usually steamed with a little water and then refined. The options here range from fried garlic and onions to parmesan, butter or olive oil to pepper and nutmeg. You can also puree spinach with a little cream to make creamed spinach.
Can you reheat spinach?
While spinach's rumored iron content is a myth, the old adage of not reheating spinach isn't turning out to be entirely wrong. However, it still comes from a time when cooling options were only available to a limited extent. If you leave the cooked spinach in the warm kitchen for a day, bacteria convert the nitrate into unhe althy nitrite. To prevent this, you should only store cooked spinach in the refrigerator, since the low temperatures delay the conversion. In this way, the spinach can be warmed up two days later without hesitation.
If you want to try a different variety of spinach next season, check out our article on spinach varieties here.