Spinach Time

Last year I let my spinach go to seed so I could save some to plant this year.  Since I was often away or busy, the spinach got away from me and much of it reseeded itself when I wasn't looking.  I was still able to save a fair amount of seed (enough to share at Seedy Saturday).

Here is my huge patch of spinach that is ready super-early.

 

 

We have been eating steamed spinach sprinkled with vinegar and also spinach salad with bacon, mushrooms and boiled eggs.  I plan on using some for soup as well.

 

Someone else likes fresh spinach as well.

 

 

Lulu stays close to the edge of the patch as she enjoys her feed of spinach.  We don't mind sharing with her since there is so much of it.

 

She also likes that some of the leaves from last fall are near the spinach.  She likes to scratch and look for bugs while feasting on the spinach.

 

"Oh boy," exclaimed Lulu.  "I sure like all this green stuff!  Yum, yum, yum."

 

So Lulu is enjoying our nice weather - eating, scratching, dustbathing and sunning herself most of the day.  ;)

 

 

 



Saving Spinach Seeds

I decided to save my spinach seed this year.  Here are the plants going to seed.

Did you know that spinach has male and female plants?  You can't tell the difference until they start to go to seed.  (maybe some people can but I can't)  This is a female plant.  You can see the little lumps in the joints?  That is the start of the seeds.

This is the male plant.  It gets many tiny flowers all up the stalk.  When the plant moves in the wind or if you brush against it, the pollen looks like a yellow dust cloud.

Here is a female plant drying up outside.  I let them dry most of the way out in the garden.  When you are saving seeds, you don't want to save the first plants that go to seed as that is not a trait you want.  You also try to save seed from the largest, nicest plants so you continue those traits.

When the plants are fairly dry, I pull them out of the ground and tie them in bunches.  I then hang them upside down in the greenhouse to finish drying.  This way I don't have the spinach reseeding itself in the garden.

When the spinach is all dry, I put it in an old chicken feed bag to knock the seeds off.  Some people pick the seeds by hand but I don't really care if I have some leaves, etc. in with the seeds.  The seeds won't grow any better if they are clean and my way takes much less time.

After crushing the plants to remove the seed, I dump it into a container.  I usually spread the seeds out for a final drying.  I then sort out some of the larger chaff and then label and store the seeds until next year.



Freezing Spinach

I had an over-abundance of spinach this year.  We ate it steamed, in salad, and in soup.  I decided to try to freeze some.  I found the following link giving three ways to prepare the spinach to freeze.  I decided on steaming it.
http://voices.yahoo.com/how-freeze-spinach-3-methods-5303177.html?cat=22

First wash spinach thoroughly.

Add about 1 to 2 inches of water in your blancher and bring to a boil.  I used the blancher instead of my steamer because it holds more at once.  I kept the water below the bottom of the top blancher part so all the spinach would steam.  If some of the leaves were in the boiling water they would cook at a different rate.  Spinach is quite touchy as you don't want it to turn to mush by over-cooking it.  You just want it limp.

Loosely fill top of blancher.  Don't pack to tightly or all the leaves won't steam at the same rate.  Steam for 1 to 2 minutes.  I found 1minute and 45 seconds worked for me.

Allow to drain and cool in colander.

I used my salad spinner to remove as much moisture as I could.  You have to spread the spinach around the bottom of the spinner or it will be uneven and hard to turn.

I them bagged the spinach to freeze for later use.  I want to try it resteamed when thawed and to use some in soup this winter.  I'll let you know how it turned out when I use some.



Volunteer Spinach

I was going to collect seed from my spinach last year but got sidetracked and it didn't get done.  I ended up feeding the old plants to the chickens.  They love fresh greens of any kind.

This spring, I noticed I had some volunteer spinach growing along the sidewalk.  I left them for Lulu to nibble on as she wandered past.  I also thought it might keep her away from the other plants growing in the garden.  Wrong!  She'll eat a side of spinach before moving over to the tiny cabbage and bok choi plants for a leaf or two - unfortunately for those plants, a leaf or two is most of the plant.  :(

Since the spinach has been doing so well, I decided Lulu could share her bounty with us.

I recently got a steamer and decided to try cooking some spinach.  Yum!  It was so tender and much easier to cook than boiling it in a pot and having to try to turn the spinach so it all gets done at the same time.  We ate it straight from the steamer with a drizzle of vinegar.  (Sorry no pics as I forgot to snap some before we ate it all.)

I also made a spinach salad that I regularly made in the past.  Again no pics but it is not hard to make.  Chop 1/2 pound of bacon and fry until done.  Boil several eggs, peel and slice.  Slice some mushrooms.  Wash spinach and rip into bite-sized pieces.  Place spinach in bowl and sprinkle on bacon bits.  Add egg and mushroom slices.  Drizzle on ranch dressing.  Enjoy!