Spinach is the healthiest of all the green leafy vegetables that are known to humankind. They bestow abundant health benefits, and if grown in your own backyard, then it just makes the whole thing extra worthy.
However, there are certain unknown challenges that are faced when someone decides to grow a spinach plant. One of the many challenges include the hardships that one encounters while harvesting and cutting the spinach plant. Many people are devoid of the knowledge and the regular tips that make up the harvesting of spinach.
Will spinach grow back after cutting? How to harvest spinach in a way that it regrows? How to keep every spinach growing need in check? If you bear these questions in mind, then don’t worry. We are here to provide you answers for these questions in the most appropriate way. Keep reading further to know more.
Also Read: White Spots on Spinach Leaves
Does Spinach Regrow After Cutting?
Cutting straight to the chase, the answer to “does spinach regrow after cutting”, is positive. That is, spinach can definitely grow back once it is cut, owing to the fact that certain preliminaries and conditions are followed. What are these conditions? How should they be followed? All of these queries will be solved as we proceed further.
For now, let us have a look at some of the basic spinach cultivation methods, some things you know and many you don’t. The goodness of spinach for our body, skin, hair, and eyes is not hidden from anyone. While cultivating spinach at home definitely yields its own benefits, there are some things that, if not remained cautious, can hamper the benefits of growing spinach altogether.
Spinach, as a plant, does not provide challenges with its growing speed. It grows faster as compared to other plants and has the potential to mature nearly after 25 days from its sowing period.
Moving further, there are certain limitations on the temperature needs of spinach cultivation. It can only thrive if kept between the temperature ranges of 15 to 30 degree Celsius. Besides, it needs ample water to grow. If you are cultivating spinach, then you should know that your plants expect an annual rainfall of at least 80 to 120 centimeters.
While December to February are sensitive months for the growth of spinach, they remain flexible to be grown all around the year. Sandy and alluvial soils are the most preferred soil conditions, in contrast to well drained and moist soil.
That being said, let us move to the harvesting methods that allow spinach regrowth, once it is cut.
Also Read: Spinach Leaves Turning Yellow or White
Spinach Harvesting, must knows
In order to ensure that your spinach plant regrows after cutting, it is important to ensure the right and most appropriate spinach harvesting strategies and techniques. Some of them are mentioned below:
- The foremost thing to remember is that it takes a good period of about 20 to 25 days for a baby spinach plant to mature, and harvesting plants can only be initiated after that period.
- In case, you want to harvest spinach before the achievement of its maturation period, you can pick about six seven leaves carefully, when it turns rosette. Remember that baby spinach leaves are soft and tender, and one should not carelessly prick them out, as it can damage the neighbouring plants as well.
- In case spinach leaves need to be picked after they mature, it should be done before they bear fruits or flowers. This way, their taste remains intact, as opposed to turning bitter when pricked with fruits and flowers.
- Further, the harvesting period should be well planned and executed, picking them up as soon as they mature is advisable, otherwise they do not waste time in turning yellow, thus depriving it of every nutritional value it has.
- Another popular harvesting phenomena includes the popular process of bolting. Many people practice bolting to regrow their cut spinach leaves. While it is a natural process, it can also be brought about intentionally by overwatering or underwatering the plant.
- It is very significant to keep in mind that bolting does not ever encourage the regrowth of spinach leaves, once they have been cut. It is unfortunate, yet informative.
- Bolting, as believed by masses, is not a wise choice to make. It leaves the plant owners with only a few options at hand, and none of them supports regrowing the plants again. After you have bolted your spinach plant, you can either uproot them and replace them with some other crop immediately, or let them blossom, only to gather their seeds for later use.
- Bolting preventive techniques can be applied and implemented to reduce the damage and save the plants. One of them is to cultivate spinach as soon as the bolting season ends, preferably in hot seasons. It will let your plant live a longer and healthier life.
- For ensuring a proper regrowth of your spinach plants, it is first vital for you to know that once cut, spinach regenerates from a point at the stem where it joins the roots. If you have accidentally cut the spinach plant, keeping its stem untouched and undisturbed for a period of 4 to 5 weeks would aid the plant to regrow back from the particular stem point.
- If you decide to cut the plant, be very sure of not doing it from a point that is seemingly close to the soil. It would reinforce the “growing back of the plant” process.
- If you want to consume a small amount of spinach, then you can cut only some of the leaves for your consumption, instead of cutting more and causing damage to the plant. For this purpose, make sure to start your cutting process from the outside and older leaves. They would decay first, and therefore it is important to use them before.
- Next, if you wish to put an entire spinach plant to use for immediate use, make sure to do so from at least two inches above the ground. Your scissors or other apparatus should be far away from the growing point.
- It is important to cut, and harvest the plant as per your immediate needs, otherwise they start decaying really fast, making it a hassle for you to store it.
Also Read: How to Grow Malabar Spinach Plant in Pots?
How to Grow Spinach: Tips
It doesn’t just end with the knowledge of harvesting and cutting the plant right. Growing a spinach plant is much more than that. Here are some additional spinach plant care tips that would ace up your process of getting healthy spinach plants as easily as one can. Follow them for best results:
- It all begins with the seeds. When you are sowing your seeds, you have to make sure that you are doing so as soon as you can. There is no waiting period when it comes to sowing seeds of spinach plants. Check the temperature. Sowing seeds in a frosted area is not advisable. Instead, doing so in high heat summer days will keep you from the unnecessary inconvenience caused by the process of bolting, thus leading you to enjoy your harvest for longer time periods.
- Unfortunately, spinach does not demand too much or too little sunlight or sunshade. It lives moderately and thrives for the same. Therefore, it is important for you to check the area where your plants are to grow for the right mixture of sun and shade. Too much of anything is dangerous for the plant. It can either bolt or dry up from water shortage.
- Checking the solid before planting spinach is preliminary and promotes good health of the plant throughout. It seeks well drained soil, preferably of a pH value ranging between 6.5 to 7. Make sure the soil fulfills all these requirements.
- Spinach plants are extensive in their size and shape as they grow, and planting them consecutively closely can lead to the hampering of their growth. One, seeds should be sowed and buried at a depth of about 0.5 inches in the soil. Next, they should be separated and placed at a distance of about three to four inches from each other.
- As stated earlier, spinach plants do not desire too much water. Some people can continue overwatering them in a hope for them to grow faster and greener. Sadly, this is not how it works. Overwatering plants can damage them, owing to the reason that they are cold weather plants and do not require so much water. Next, do not deprive them of water too. Germination period requires the soil to be moist at all times of the day, since it accelerates the process over time. Watering at the earlier part of the day is the best watering time and ensures that the waterlogging process is prevented.
- Pests are a constant threat to the health of spinach plants and keeping them at bay through the use of neem oil, insecticides, and pesticides is a wise choice. The plant is prone to diseases caused by fleas, beetles, leaf spots, downy mildew, damping-off and snail, cutworm, leaf miners, and slugs causing infestation. They can destroy your long term hardwork of keeping the spinach plant safe.
- Since we are putting so much emphasis on the care of soil, we should not miss out on saying that adding good quality manure is a brilliant idea. Homemade manure can be made easily by using food scraps, used tea leaves, fruit peel, and rotten fruits and vegetables. Making manure at home solves two purposes, one is it is satisfactory in quality and quantity, and second it helps save the resources like time, energy and money that would otherwise be wasted in purchasing manure from the market.
- Bolting should be avoided at all prices, it is not advisable to let your spinach plants go through bolting. It devastates the plant, makes it bitter, and prevents the process of regrowth of the plant after it is cut.
- The concluding suggestion is not only limited to spinach plants, but exceeds to every plant in your garden or backyard. The growth of your plants should be monitored regularly. If you want your seeds to yield some results, then it is required for you to look after them on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis, as and when required. While most spinach species get ready in 25-30 days, some of them also take upto a period of 60 days. Gain knowledge about your plant species beforehand and visit them once every day.
Conclusion
A perennially grown plant and a native of central and Western Asia, Spinacia oleracea is an easy to cultivate plant that is rich in vitamins, iron, calcium, and other minerals. However, getting well cultivated and high quality spinach from your own garden requires some careful measures, most of which are stated above.
While you know that spinach does grow back after cutting, knowing the additional methods and tips can only be added to your book of knowledge. You can use the aforementioned tips and ideas to get the best of your spinach cultivation experience.