If the weather and/or the soil temperatures are still warm at the recommended planting time for spinach, you can soak the seed in a bowl of cold water in the fridge for 24 hours and then plant the seed in the ground. The cold water soak helps the seeds break dormancy.

If you have soil that crusts over on top (any soil can do this---not only clay), you can sow the seed at the proper depth in furrows, but then cover it with compost, instead of the soil, as the compost is less likely to crust over. Or, use the same trick often used with carrots, and sow a radish seed every few inches with the spinach seed. Radish seeds germinate fast and break through the crusty soil surface, paving the way for the spinach seeds.

If I do not have compost available then is there any reason peat would not work as a cover.

Peat is a odd duck. Once it is moist, it can hold water well, sometimes too well. Once it is dry, though, it can be hard to re-wet it as water will bead up on top of it and just run off. So, I think it would work if you start out with it moist to begin with and never let it totally dry out before the seeds sprout.

You also could use any sort of soil-less mix or bagged, composted manure like Black Kow. They don't crust over on the surface nearly as much as native soil tends to do.

There good be at least 3 reasons you got no germination at all. You could have had bad seed. The ground could have dried out killing the sprouted seed before it could erupt. Or the ground could have crusted too much to allow it up. So be sure to get fresh seed. You might also presprout it in the house to make sure it is good. Keep the soil moist and covered with a soft mix as Dawn suggested. It also helps to plant it where it will get some afternoon shade. Leaf crops don't need as much sun as fruiting crops.

While we're talking spinach, my parents grew the "Big Ruffles" hybrid this last year...all the way through the summer (kind of hung on)...into the fall, and then all the way through winter as well! This is the most impressive spinach I've ever seen. The leaves were HUGE in the fall and winter seasons (8-10" long, easily), very tasty raw (I can't stand it cooked, sorry), and they were good keepers in the refrigerator, too. They're still going... :-)

Sharon