Ah, spinach. So good. There are a few important things to know about growing it, however, so let’s take a look at them first.

It is a cold season crop. It is planted as soon as the ground is thawed and the soil can be worked. Even a few late frosts won’t bother it. It grows straight through. You have to get an early start with spinach because when it becomes hot, the plants bolt, and the leaves become bitter.

It can be grown in either raised beds, or sown right into the garden. And it requires at least seven inches of soil depth due to its taproot.This depth is especially important for raised beds. You want to be sure that you have seven inches of soil for the taproot to grow healthily.

When you plant the seeds, we suggest planting them in rows. In order to establish good seed to soil contact, sow the seeds and then cover with a quarter to a half inch of soil, and tamp down. And, by the way, this is also a good time to apply some water soluble fertilizer in your watering.

When the sprouts appear, thin them down so that you have one healthy sprout every six to eight inches. As the plants develop, you can begin harvesting when the bottom leaves are around three inches.

In this shot, if you’ll notice the row to the left is younger because it was planted two weeks later. Successive planting like this is a good idea with spinach. If you’d like, you could plant a second crop in the fall once temperatures grow cooler.

As the plants continue to grow, you can harvest leaves from the bottom of each plant for all of your spinach recipes, like salads, casseroles, and anything else your heart desires. All of these can be bought by the packet or by the pound.

I’m Eric Allen for EdenBrothers.com, the seediest place on earth.

Our best-selling spinach is included in our heirloom vegetable seed vault. It’s our most popular collection, and it contains 30 varieties. It’s a whole vegetable garden in one easy to grow collection.