Elderly people can be irrasable. While it’s hard to ignor your mother, try not to take her words to heart. Be a duck and toss them off like water. Grow the foods for your own pleasure.

I like spinach too. Have you tried Succession Plantng for the spinach?

Perhaps your Mom likes regular peas. I don’t care much for Sugar Snap either and so grow the smallish regular ones. Maybe she’ll even help you shell them.

I too have the hardest time growing quantities of spinach. It seems to bolt the minute the leaves start to get big enough to use! But I am sorry your Mom is being a pessimist. My dad was like that in his later years. Also I want to commend your devotion to growing food - we are about the same age and I’m pondering an early exit from medicine. The food system is as messed up as the health care system, but I can control the things I grow more than my work environment best of luck on your garden!

I’ve never planted spinach so can’t help you there. But when I was young, I once asked my mother why some old people got so miserable/mean/nasty and she answered that they were miserable/mean/nasty when they were young too. She was right. :)

I feel ya. Mom sometimes gives me the side eye too when I'm talking gardens- and she's the one who had the garden and did processing when I was a kid! It's like she forgets where I get it from. It was weird and hurt at bit at first, but by now I shrug it off. Yep, it is folly mom, and you know full well I will enjoy my folly, and we will eat my glorious folly till the next I can folly again :) Sometimes I remind her of her year of raspberry jam and we laugh at her folly.

It's not a bad folly to try. I struggle with growing spinach in quantity enough for processing. Over the last several years I've given over to trying all sorts of other greens because of it. And I still keep growing spinach too.

OMG, Thank you all for taking the time to respond. All you say is true.

You can have too much spinach? I thought that was impossible.

You had major changes in your life. I hope you have smooth sailing from now on and enjoy your wonderful garden.

IMHO there is no need to be sensitive about an offhand comment, (I was going to say it is a molehill not a mountain and then I remembered how bad moles can be in gardens).

Enjoy yourself.

When you are planting the spinach and Mom is around, smile and hum 'Popeye the Sailorman.' Make a 'Martha's Folly' sign for the spinach patch.

Finally, when the harvest exceeds expectations and you serve some luscious spinach creation at dinner and Mom requests seconds, take the high road and bite your tongue:)

I had to smile, my Mother died in December and she always thought I should plant more and earlier, she helped me repot tomato seedlings and shell beans. She just wouldn't eat any of it. I distinctly remember her handing me a bowl of salad after she had eaten the berries from the top and saying "feed this to the cows", LOL.

My Dad always asked me why I had to plant new or unusual things, why couldn't I stick to the few "tried and true" things we'd always grown. I just smiled and told him that was the FUN part of gardening. Sometimes it turned out well and new things became favorites but mostly it was a reason for him to shake his head at me and shrug. He knew if he didn't tolerate my particular "folly" he'd lose his only garden worker!

I did manage to grow lots of spinach here in Michigan last year, but it was by happenstance. I planted, it grew, it bolted, I cut it down hoping it would come back. It was in a hoop house. We got an ice storm that collapsed a section of the hoop house and I decided to wait until spring. I went to the hoop house to prepare it for spring in March, pulled up the piece of plastic that had collapsed on the spinach and there it was, a nice big row of lovely green leaves, growing happily in the 35 degree hoop house. A row of some kind of lettuce was growing there too, left from the prior year. I was eating salads and putting handfuls of green in soup in April. So, I had better success by planting late summer and looking for a spring harvest. I don't suppose you have a cold frame or hoop house or something similar? If not, is there a protected place that you can plant earlier or one where you can keep it cooler so it doesn't bolt?

Annie

Time to plant spinach in my zone (6b nearly 7) is early October and let it overwinter. Next best time would be right now. Spinach bolts with a combination of heat and lengthening days. The heat comes earlier and earlier as global warming continues.

Annie, I’m so sorry to learn about your mom passing.

I’m lucky — my father was a gardener who loved and encouraged all the different plants I grew.

Martha, I grew kale for the first time last year and got an excellent harvest from just 5 little seedlings that my sister gave me. It didn’t seem to mind any weather changes. Maybe try that?

I plan to plant spinach as soon as the ground is no longer frozen. I might also try a few large containers on the deck, even before the rest of the garden is thawed. There are some areas in the garden beds with partial shade that might bolt later than the sunnier spots.

I will certainly be growing kale, since it fills a niche very similar to spinach.

Martha

Annie,

I am also sad to hear of the death of your mom. I always enjoyed hearing how she helped you, as she was able. I hope the happy memories can balance the pain of the loss.

Martha

I've also had a hard time growing spinach in the spring. Sometimes it yields , some years it doesn't. Lately I've found that overwintered spinach planted out in the fall does better. Right now I have an over abundance of overwintered spinach ,too much to eat fresh . I'm about to can it before it bolts in the heat.

Maybe even mix some overwintered Swiss Chard with it.

I do other greens too. Collards and kale , mustard..

I've even canned "Poke" that everybody seems to be afraid of ( Just don't eat it fresh).

Annie , I'm sorry to hear about your Mom's death.

I lost my Mom to ovarian cancer back in 1998.

That was when I actually started canning on my own ,in memory of my Mom.

A "carry the torch sort of thing".

Back to canning greens :

Here is my garden now:

Okie HU

My garden doesn't look anywhere near like yours, Okie.

I did manage to put spinach seeds in a couple of pots and they have finally sprouted and are growing a little. I think I will try the over-wintering thing the end of this year.

Okie, my garden doesn't look like yours either. lol! Your canned greens sure do look good!!!

The "Martha's Folly," comment really does sound dismissive. Foo! I hope you have the biggest spinach harvest anyone has ever seen.

Okie HU, do you happen to make youtube videos? It seems like I've seen you on youtube canning with a set up like that in surroundings like that in your photo. What a fine, big garden you have.

Growing up, I ate poke sallet/weed, but as an adult feel too skittish. However I do can wild lambsquarters--and dehydrate them, too.

No I haven't done youtube but there's probably some out there similar to my setup.

My setup was an alternative to canning on glasstop stoves in the kitchen , plus it keeps the heat out of the kitchen , but needs to be done out of the wind.. The shop/ garage was a perfect place for it ,but still have to fill the jars in the kitchen and carry them out.

That garden is a work in progress , still haven't finished planting it all out. Time and too wet weather usually work against me.

This was my Mom's garden by the way.

Okie HU

My spinach is coming along. My climate is too cold to overwinter spinach in an open bed, and i don't have a greenhouse or protection (yet). i have several large pots that are nearly ready to harvest. In also have a 15' row in the garden with second sets of true leaves, and a bunch more small pots that sprouted this week. We still have nights in the low 40s, but today is supposed to get up to 80. So, my spring spinach is going to bolt before it really gets going. I will definitely be making an autumn attempt.

I did get posts in for my deer fencing, and the heavy layer of autumn leaves does seem to have completely blocked grass and weed growth in the new beds.

Everyone's gardens are looking great!

Martha

Dang, Okie, that's a garden! Mine is about an acre, Mom would be happy. Dad would tell me there aren't enough tomatoes and what the heck am I doing with poblanos and tomatillos, LOL.

Martha, my spinach in the hoop houses has already bolted. That 90F last week did it in, but the peas seem to be soldiering along. I planted them under the trellis that holds the Christmas Limas, hoping that the beans would shade the peas. Maybe I'll plant some late spinach under there and see how that goes, although the collard greens and mizuna are growing nicely and I only need so many greens, LOL. The only thing that isn't growing well is the green beans, not a single one came up and I replanted last Saturday and turned on the sprinklers, so hopefully the second planting will come up.

Annie

I was able to make a lovely, huge batch of spanikopita (Greek spinach pie) yesterday, all from my home grown spinach. It was delicious. My vegetarian brother was visiting from Pennsylvania, so it was a special treat. Most of my spinach has also bolted, after the 90+ heat. I did find that the containers on the porch were untouched by insect predation, while the patch in the garden was full of little holes. I look forward to the fall spinach season.

Martha