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Post by hortusbrambonii on Mar 23, 2014 16:51:05 GMT -5
I did try a lot of plants that can be used like spinach in the garden (including the tree spinach that formed a seed bank that I'll probably never get rid of anymore) but it seems like all of them are for the summer: annual chenopodiums, atriplexes, new zealand spinach, even Hablitzia...
Is there any plant that can be used as a spinach that keeps on giving leaves whenever it's not too cold in the wintertime in a temperate climate?
Does the 'good king henry' give leaves in winter? Would a sea-beet be a good candidate maybe? (I've tried neither up till now but will grow both this year)
Any other suggestions?
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Post by toad on Apr 6, 2014 13:38:14 GMT -5
In my garden, Good King Henry have no leaves in winter.
Chards have leaves in mild winters, they are not all equally hardy. I'm not fond of chard, stopped growing it, and no expert. But know an older woman in a garden colder in winter than mine, who developed her own improved strain of chard for winterharvest. Just get the available cultivars, let hem cross. Let winter kill the tender individuals, and let the more hardy survive. That's how she did.
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Post by cesarz on Aug 26, 2014 4:30:27 GMT -5
Sea beet definitely highly recommended, there are plants that could really withstand the winter chills. Another plant recommendation is salsify although it is more of a lettucy taste rather than spinachy.
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Post by telsingandrews on Mar 12, 2015 7:35:55 GMT -5
Or Scorzonera rather as its perennial. Interesting question about the spinach plant.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Mar 16, 2015 23:03:21 GMT -5
My neighbor plants spinach, (Spinacia oleracea - variety unknown), in the fall, and it overwinters as plants.
One year I had a radicchio plant survive the winter in my garden.
Violets and dandelions grow first thing in the spring. Dandelions are edible first thing in the spring, but only then.
About half the time turnips survive the winter in my garden. They sprout very early in the spring. 2nd year turnip greens are not fuzzy like first year greens. Some of Brassica rapa varieties might make great winter or early spring greens. Some of them might overwinter... The species seems much more cold tolerant to me than beets or chard.
I don't consider parsnip or carrot leaves to be edible, but they are also early sprouting greens. There is probably enough diversity within the species to select for leaf-traits instead of root traits.
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