I sowed Cos Verdi spinach into Buddy’s Sydney patch this morning, 10 June, with first cutting pencilled in for 25 July. That’s about 45 days from seed to a feed in Sydney’s warm temperate winter.
I went 15 to 20cm between plants, which is wider than people expect for spinach. Crowd it and you get leggy, bolting plants fighting for light. I sowed shallow, about 1cm deep, pressed the soil down, then gave the bed a proper soak rather than a sprinkle. Spinach germinates on moisture, so I keep the top of the bed damp until the seedlings show.
Spinach likes it cool. The sweet spot is 15 to 20°C, and Sydney in June sits right in that band. This is exactly the wrong crop for a hot bed and exactly the right one for now. Push it into summer warmth and it bolts to seed before you’ve cut a leaf. The climate-zone growing guides spell out which crops suit which zone so you don’t fight your weather.
One quirk with this crop: it does better on its own. I’m not pairing it with anything. Most of my beds run companions, but spinach I leave to itself and it rewards me for the room. If you do want to pair crops elsewhere in the patch, the companion planting tool sorts the good neighbours from the bad.
What to expect over the next six weeks
I should see germination in 7 to 14 days, so call it the third week of June if the soil holds its temperature. First true leaves a week or so after that. From there it’s steady leaf growth through July, and I’ll take the first outer leaves around 25 July, cutting from the outside and leaving the centre to keep pushing. Done that way, one sowing crops for weeks.
If you’re in Sydney or anywhere warm temperate and want to follow along, today’s a good day to get spinach in. Check the what to plant now calendar for your own zone before you sow, because the window shifts as you move south. Same goes for the cool temperate growers down in Melbourne or Hobart, though I’d cloche or fleece your bed because your overnight temperatures bite harder than mine. Both zones are inside the planting window right now. Direct sow it the same way I did, shallow and watered in well, and skip the companions.
I’ll log germination when it happens and weigh the first cut so we get a real cost per kilo rather than a guess. Logging a harvest takes a few seconds, and the harvest log turns it into a running cost per kilo automatically. Supermarket baby spinach was running about $4 for a 120g bag on this week’s Brisbane shelf prices, which is roughly $33 a kilo, so even a modest bed pays for the seed packet fast.
The only hard part now is convincing the slugs that my seedlings aren’t their dinner.
