I hope so, Mick! I tried growing it one time, too, but didn't have much luck. That spinach salad sure sounds GREAT!

Susan

It looks and tastes good too.

Check out a picture of it on my wife's cooking blog.

Mick.

Here is a link that might be useful: Jan's cooking blog

I grow mine in a raised garden that has great soil with tons of organic matter. Manure makes it grow well. But, as always, when it heats up it usually bolts (seeds out) and becomes bitter then dies. In Wisconsin and Minnesota I could grow it year round. Just have to keep planting new rows all year.
This year I am trying Swiss Chard. It is said to love heat, and grow all year up to winter. Mine is just now starting to grow well, while my spinich crop is nearing the end of production soon. Chard tastes a lot like spinich and is served just like spinich (fresh or cooked). It also is very pretty. You can get it in many colors and plant it in flower beds for added color. There are tons of recipes on the internet. You can get seed now and still have time for good crops all the way to winter. Cover it in fall and maybe extend production to the end of the year. So why did I ever grow spinich???

Best crop that I ever had (in Oklahoma) was planted in VERY late fall in a hoop house in southern Oklahoma. It takes very little protection to grow greens in much of Oklahoma in the winter time. I have read that spinach is not only sent to seed by the heat, but by day length. The article said that even a street light was enough light to cause it to bolt. The article said when the days got longer you should cover your spinach early to give it a long night. I have not tried this, nor do I know if it will work.

I plant mesclun mix which is various types of lettuce and a little spinach, etc. Although my lettuce is still tasting and looking great after weeks of picking, some of the spinach is starting to stretch upward, so I know it is about gone.

You might try looking on the market growers forum. I don't normally read it but a few weeks ago, I hit upon a thread of a discussion of summer greens.

I haven't grown it for many years, as Swiss Chard did better for us in hot climates (or extreme climates). This year I purchased some spinach seed and forgot that I had done so. Then I purchased seed for Swiss chard. In March, when I went to plant my chard, I opened an *unmarked* packet, which I remembered as being Swiss chard, and planted it. I wondered at the seed and kept thinking "How in the world did they manage to get the seed out of the seed balls?" What came up a few weeks later was Spinach. It's doing great, probably due to our very cool, wet spring. Guess I need to pick it now. Hadn't grown it in so long, I didn't remember when to pick (other than... when hungry).

Swiss chard is very good, but I doubt it would taste as good in a salad. Another option is Lambs quarters. We grow a ton of these. My family likes them best of all. And, I'm sure they would be good in a salad.

George
Tahlequah, OK

Ooh, George, I didn't know that chenopodium was edible! Thanks for the tip! I will have to try it. Do you use it as salad greens? I grow plantain, too (actually for the Buckeye butterflies), but I've heard it is edible as well. I know, most people think of Lambsquarters and plantain as weeds, but they do have food value.

I am glad to hear about Swiss Chard bearing up under our heat. I always thought it was another cool weather green. I'll have to try it now. Thanks for the heads up you guys!

Susan

I've just looked in my small selection of Heirloom Seed packets and guess what? There's a packet of Rainbow Swiss Chard amongst them. So I'm going to go out and sow a few and see what happens. Well, when things have dried out a little that is as we had a pretty heavy storm last night. I'm feeling smug as I got all my mowing done yesterday afternoon. :-)

Thanks for the suggestions everyone.

Mick.

Mick,

Each one of those Swiss Chard seeds is essentially a dried-up fruit that has several seeds inside of it....so, when they sprout, you may have several plants (in different colors!) sprout from each seed. They are easy to separate and replant, or you can cut off all but one or two. If you leave the 3, 4, 5 or 6 sprouts together, they won't grow well 'cause they're too crowded. I have grown Swiss Chard every year since we moved here, and it handles the heat surprisingly well. Sometimes, if you aren't harvesting regularly, the outer leaves get ratty-looking, but you can cut them off and throw them on the compost pile.

I like Swiss Chard but my chickens won't eat it....so if you need a plant that can exist unfenced in an area where chickens free-range, Swiss Chard is a good one for that purpose.

Dawn

Dawn

You're right, they looked a little like "seed clusters".

From the pictures I've seen I'm presuming that it won't need any trellissing or other support?

Thanks for the tip.

Hi Mick,

You're welcome. And, no, they don't need a trellis, cage or other support.

The stalks come straight up out of the ground, sort of like cannas, but not as tall, stiff or upright.

I have grown them in everything from full sun to almost full shade. Chard tastes best if you harvest the leaves/stalks while they are no larger than medium to small. The larger the stalks get, the less tender they are. I don't get a lot of pests on mine, although sometimes grasshoppers eat holes in the leaves.

You can use them in salads and you also can cook with them.

I'll post a couple of swiss chard recipes on a separate thread this afternoon when it is too hot here to go outside.

Dawn

Mick, Here in z6b I plant spinach no later than the first week in March and occasionally the last week in Feb. I suspect that you are planting it too late in z7. I have picked gobs of it this year from a 20 ft row and it is just now starting to bolt. I will plant it again in the fall, mid Sept, and if the weather cooperates will pick it late fall and again very early next spring, as it will overwinter most winters. (During that warm Jan in 06 the spinach bore wonderfully.) Swiss Chard is good too, but the D&^%*M blister beetles love it and can decimate it overnight here. Swiss Chard is related to beets. And like George, I have been allowing lambsquarter to go to seed in my garden for years and mix it with spinach to cook. We don't like it as well raw as it has a certain grittiness to it. I also mix in small leaves from the broccoli plants. And well cooked and drained poke shoots early in the season. Wild amaranth is also edible as a young green but doesn't grow as prolifically in my garden as lambsquarters. Better luck in the fall, Mick

We haven't tried Lambs Quarters in salad. But it is my family's absolute favorite leafy green vegetable, bar none. We had a bunch of out of state relatives over about a week ago, for our youngest's high school graduation, and served them Lamb's quarters. I ended up sending several away with packets of seed! EVERYONE thought they were great. Part of the agenda for today is to pick and freeze A LOT of them. We eat them year round. But later in the summer they can get tedious to pick due to flea beetles and certain catapillars.

Chenopodium ... I didn't know the scientific name. There is at least one variety, which is common in South central Mexico, which is a darker green, and not very palatable. That variety, however, is useful for washing hands. It is high in saponins (soap like substances) and one can crush and rub the leaves under running water in order to better clean their hands.

I've tried to eat plantain. but it tasted like... a weed. Perhaps someone knows better how to prepare it. Had the same experience with wild violets. They say that the leaves can be cooked like a vegetable and the roots and flowers are edible as well. My experience was that they might be edible, but palatable... no.

After reading this thread yesterday I went out and took a hard look at my spinach. Yep! It was preparing to bolt. We put 2/3 of it in the freezer yesterday. I'll finish picking and freezing the rest today.

George

The caterpillars you are finding could be little Scallopwing butterflies in the making. This is their host plant. But, they are so small they wouldn't/couldn't possibly make a very large dent in a single plant.

Swiss Chard (rumex family?) is also a host plant for certain species of butterflies.

I tried to eat an Indian Strawberry - no taste whatsoever to it. As long as I know it is edible, I'll try it! LOL!

I have heard of people using violet flowers to add a bit of color to salads. I've yet to taste them.

Also edible are begonias, leaves and flowers.

Coneflowers or echinacea is a medicinal herb, the leaves of which that can be brewed as a tea to boost the immune system.

Have to be careful with some of the medicinal herbs because they are actually toxic in their natural form - like digitalis (foxgloves) for instance.

....and, of course, there are the dandelions! I think there are better strains than what we find growing as weeds in our yards, with larger leaves and flowers.

Nor would I try asclepias or milkweeds (common name "pleurisy root" as the long taproot was used to treat pleurisy or lung problems). Very toxic when not used properly.

Susan

Susan,
Don't forget Nasturnum (spelling?) it's leaves and flowers are edible. I threw a few in the garden to help attract bees and butterflies. Haven't tasted them yet though, from what I hear they have a peppery flavor. Still ignorant about all of the hostplants, but trying to be as kind a spossible to all of the critters we have here.

Mick, I'm a very new gardener, learning as I go. I planted Spinach here in the SW OKC area beginning of April. I've been able to enrich the soil quite a bit over the last year, and this year I tilled in some cotton burr (bought it at Marcum's) about a week before I planted seeds. My garden gets full sun all day long. I planted my rows running North/South, with the Spinach in the row further East, in the next row I put in my tomato transplants. I actually alternated rows, lettuce, tomato, lettuce tomato. I'm still harvesting Spinach!!! My theory was to have the taller plants provide shade for the lettuce and spinach, so that I could get a good harvest. I think the combination of shading the plants with taller plants and the soil amendment is what helped me this year... last year didn't work out as well, critters and borers got everything except the cucumbers and a couple watermelon!

Courtney