How to Grow Spinach
Spinach is an excellent source of iron, and grows best during autumn, winter and spring – during summer it’ll also grow, but be more likely to get leafspot disease.
Planting
There are two ways of planting spinach.
Direct sowing: sow the seeds about 1cm deep, using your finger to make a hole for each seed. Weed and water well and thin out until the plants are about 25cm apart.
Sowing in a seedbed: Make rows 1cm apart and sow the seed as above. Water and weed well, and keep thinning the spinach until the plants are about 2cm apart and 10cm high. Transplant on a cool day into rows 30cm apart with 25cm between plants.
If the plants are more than 10cm tall when you transplant them, cut off half the leaves.
Water the young plants twice a day and give them shade until they are growing well.
Fertilizing
Dig in half a wheelbarrow full of manure or compost per m2.
Put more fertilizer on top of the soil for top-dressing. This should be liquid manure.
To make liquid manure, put half a sack of manure in a 200ℓ drum of water and leave to stand for two weeks.
To use liquid manure as a top-dressing, mix water and liquid manure in a ratio of 1:3 and apply using a watering can.
Top-dress every two weeks while you are harvesting the spinach.
Harvesting
You can start to pick spinach about 60 days after planting. Cut off the outside leaves with a sharp knife about 4cm from the ground.
The more you harvest spinach, the more it will grow, and you can keep cutting it for 3 to 4 months.