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Growing Spinach, also English spinach

(Spinacia oleracea)

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
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(Best months for planting Spinach in Australia - cool/mountain regions)


  • Easy to grow.
  • Harvest in 40-77 days
  • Sow in garden. Sow seed at a depth approximately three times the diameter of the seed.
  • Best planted at soil temperatures between 10°C and 25°C.
  • Space plants: 20-30cm

Green leaf crop. Spinach grows best in cooler weather and quickly runs to seed in warm weather.

Not recommended to grow in warm areas. Alternatives suitable for warm areas are Swiss Chard (Silverbeet) or NZ spinach.

Succession sowing will provide a supply through the winter months.

Culinary hints - cooking and eating Spinach

Use young leaves in salad.
Steam and add to other vegetables.

Your comments and tips

26 May 09 Dean (Australia - cool/mountain climate)
hello,i have tried growing spinich & other leafy greens but they keep getting eaten throughout the night,i have plenty of snail bait around & don't think its snails & carn't see any other insects around.may be witchety grubs in soil.can u tell me a natural insecterside or other method to adress this problem please.i live in northern NSW on the coast
08 Jun 09 Natalie (Australia - cool/mountain climate)
Dean, i have found my greens were getting eaten over night aswell and found the culprit....a little black insect which curls up(about the size of a green pea). It burrows under ground under the plant and comes up when the soil is interrupted. I've no idea what the insect is but it decimated my chinese cabbage crop. If anyone knows what this insect is and how it can be erradicated without the use of pesticides, that'd be great.
09 Jun 09 JPVD (Australia - temperate climate)
Hi Natalie; Sounds likeyou got 'slaters' baby! Hard to kill...apparently can be 'managed' with things like upturned lemon rinds and potatoe peels. They go under at night for the moisture and in the morning you can get quite a few to destroy! I hate 'em; cuz they are greedy and seemingly unstoppable. Best to bring on the seedlings in safe seed-trays somewhere and plant them out when they are quite large.
10 Jun 09 Mark (Australia - temperate climate)
Hi Natalie, We had a really bad problem with slaters which can easily be overcome by decreasing the amount of mulch (thats where they live) and or using a product called Multiguard by Multicrop. It is excellent in controlling slaters and snails and doesn't impact on the beneficial animal in the garden and breaks down into an iron chelate. Good luck.
02 Jul 09 Hannah (Australia - tropical climate)
Living in Darwin, and would love to grow spinach/baby spinach, but can't seem to get it to grow in our hot climate! Any tips/suggestions on how to keep it alive would be appreciated!
04 Jul 09 Barb (Australia - cool/mountain climate)
HI Hannah, Traditional spinach struggles in a hot climate - I grow it in winter in Sydney, but summer it only survives in cool shade. Fortunately there are various hot climate 'spinach' options: Egyptian spinach (Malu Khia) likes hot climate, and I think Ceylon spinach is another. Seeds obtainable from www.greenharvest.com.au - they're QLD based, so they're seeds should be acclimatised to tropics/subtropics.
07 Jul 09 Sherran (Australia - cool/mountain climate)
Help!! We want to get hold of the old fashioned long leafed spinach, a sweet juicy tender skinned purple grape. And can any one recommend a nice, sweet , juicy miniature manderine.
18 Sep 09 jennie (Australia - temperate climate)
my spinach seems to be dying all my other plants are fine ( herbs and vegtables) but its only the spinach that is dying they have shade area ,that gets a good amount of sun and alot of space what do i do my nursery don't know either i have tried alot of seedlings but still only the spinach die ?? could it be seasol?
10 Oct 09 Elia Rigali (Australia - temperate climate)
When the spinach germinate and at the small one leaf stage, its got little dots on the leaves all over. It looks like its marked by a tiny insect. What spray is reccomended. Thank You
15 Oct 09 sharon (Australia - sub-tropical climate)
My English spinach has gone to seed and im not sure what to do with it? Should i leave it or pull up? Does it regenerate after it has gone to seed?

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See planting calendar for these countries and climate zones

Australia - cool/mountain,   Australia - sub-tropical,   Australia - temperate,   Australia - tropical,   New Zealand - cool/mountain,   New Zealand - sub-tropical,   New Zealand - temperate,   United Kingdom - temperate/cool,   United Kingdom - temperate/warm  

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