Hmm, I didn't know that either. Interesting. I've never had any issue with saving them though. I usually have about 3 or 4 that I let go to seed, but I normally collect it in the fall. Also not in your zone, but thought I'd weigh in.

This can't stay there that long, I need the real estate. But I've also read spinach seed didn't last long, like onions. We'll see what happens.

Amy, You can save spinach seed successfully as long as you started out with an OP type of spinach. Many of the spinach varieties nowadays are hybrid, so be sure you started with an OP variety. With anything you grow, there's always a minimum recommended number of plants from which you should save the seed in order to protect genetic diversity, but the world won't end if you save seed from fewer plants (although, over time, you may see problems develop due to the lower amount of genetic diversity).

With the spinach plants, while they are mostly dioecious, in the absence of male plants, some of the female plants sometimes will sprout male parts so that they can become monoecious and reproduce viable seeds despite the lack of male plants. How's that for a neat trick?

In our climate, spinach produces better for me as a fall plant than as a spring plant. Sometimes it stays green and can be harvested all winter and then makes seed as the daylength increases in late spring. When planted as a spring crop, increasing daylength can make it bolt in our climate before it has time to make much of a harvest.

I think spinach seed usually lasts a bit longer than onion seed---maybe 3 or 4 years if kept under cool and dry storage conditions where the relative humidity does not fluctuate a lot.

Dawn

Pretty sure I've had 3 year old spinach seeds come up and that wasn't even stored with "proper" storing conditions. Don't know what the germination rate was, but usually you get massive amounts of spinach seed anyway.

Yeah, Dawn, I thought that monoecious trick was cool, too. Seems like that would be something to select for. This was Bloomsdale, planted last fall. I let it bolt because I figured if it survived the winter it would be good to save seeds from. I want to plant tomatoes where the biggest plants are. We will see. Littlemonkey, I'm glad to hear saving spinach seed works well for you. I was hoping I was making it more complicated than necessary. Interesting article about "priming" spinach seeds. The info is about 2/3 down the page.

I moved a spinach plant to get to some peas and a puff of pollen came out despite 3.5 inches of rain in the last 3 days. However, the ones I think are females don't look like they're ready yet. They better get busy!

We've been so cloudy and rainy for so long that maybe your spinach plants are having trouble getting the correct daylength. How long has it been since they had a full day of sun? lol