Spinach: growing at home from seeds for beginners

Fans of fresh greens are interested in whether it is possible to grow spinach at home on the windowsill and what varieties are suitable for this. Of course, in the supermarket you can buy greens for every taste, but grown on your own, it will always be tastier. Spinach in an apartment grows well both on the windowsill and in the glazed loggia, and with proper care throughout the year, you can harvest a grown full-fledged crop.

Is it possible to grow spinach on the windowsill in winter

It is usually practiced to grow greens in the open field or in a greenhouse during the warm season, but spinach on the windowsill in the cold season is not uncommon. If you follow the simple rules of sowing and create favorable home conditions for plant growth, you can grow greens on the windowsill all year round. For this purpose, windows or glazed balconies facing the south side of the house are suitable. Although if you provide the plant with additional lighting, growing greenery is also possible on the windowsills of windows facing north.

What varieties of spinach are suitable for growing on the windowsill

Growing spinach at home is usually practiced from seeds of early ripening varieties. The most popular among fans of growing spinach on the windowsill are the following:

• Fat-leaved – early ripening variety, ripening for 30-35 days. It has a small rosette, reaching 17-28 cm in diameter;

  

• Strawberry – with a mild aroma of strawberries, early, fast-growing, not requiring special care; its berries, which look like raspberries, are also eaten, thanks to which the variety is distinguished by additional decorativeness;

  

• Virofle – the variety also belongs to the early ones and the crop can be harvested as early as 20-25 days. A neat rosette reaches 30 cm in diameter.

  

In addition to the above, you can grow spinach at home with seeds of varieties Victoria, Matador, Melodiya, Fortress, Giant, Stoik, etc.

What conditions need to be created

To grow spinach on a windowsill in winter, it is necessary that the plant does not lack lighting, fertilizing and watering. In addition, the soil must be loosened regularly.

It is especially important to pay attention to the temperature regime. The plant is quite cold-resistant, so you should not put it on the windowsill with a battery. The plant feels most comfortable at +15 – 18 ° C, therefore growing it at home on a glazed balcony is an excellent solution. If there is no balcony, in winter it is better to rearrange the pots to the western and northern windows of the house, in the summer – to the southern and southeastern ones. At a temperature of +25 ° C, spinach begins to shoot arrows, which is to the detriment of greenery, because after the appearance of peduncles, the leaves become hard and unsuitable for food. It is best to practice growing spinach on the windowsills of kitchen windows, since the humidity in the kitchen is an order of magnitude higher than in the room. In addition, the kitchen often needs to be ventilated, which will provide suitable conditions: spinach feels good in a draft.

Spinach does not tolerate the scorching rays of the sun, therefore, on especially hot days, sowing and growing young greens at home is not recommended, especially if all the windows in the apartment face south. If, nevertheless, the desire to grow a culture at home is stronger, the bushes should be shaded without fail so that the leaves do not fade. In addition, direct sunlight impairs the taste of greens, making them bitter.

This is also important because spinach in dry conditions accelerates the appearance of arrows, so it is useful to spray the plants with a spray bottle every day or bathe once a week in the shower.

Rules for growing spinach from seeds on the windowsill in winter

Growing spinach from seeds at home should begin with the preparation of planting containers, soil, and planting material.

Preparation of containers and soil

Spinach can be grown both in ordinary flower pots (ceramic or plastic) and in wooden boxes about 20 cm high. It is important that the container has drainage holes. For full development, an adult plant needs 8×8 cm – this is the planting pattern that should be followed when sowing seeds in boxes. If the cultivation is planned in pots, you should select a container of at least 2 liters in volume and plant 2-3 plants in each. Pebbles, broken bricks or expanded clay are used as drainage, which cover the bottom of the planting tank with a layer of 3 cm.

It is not permissible to grow this vegetable crop in acidic soils. Spinach growing at home feels most comfortable in neutral soil. You can buy a ready-made substrate (universal seedling soil, without peat, which promotes oxidation) or prepare it yourself at the rate of: two parts of garden soil, one part of humus and one part of sand.

The earth mixture is calcined for an hour at a high temperature to avoid the risk of seedling infection with fungus and pathogens. To do this, the soil composition is poured onto a baking sheet with a layer of 5 cm and sent to the oven. Experts advise subjecting purchased soil to this procedure as well.

In addition, it is not uncommon for spinach cultivation at home to be practiced in a mixture of coconut fiber and biohumus, in proportions of 2: 1, respectively. Coconut fiber retains moisture well, while reducing the risk of its stagnation.

Seed preparation

In order to grow spinach from seeds on the windowsill at home in winter, for better germination, they must first be prepared in order to soften the fairly hard seeded shell. Soaking is carried out for 1-2 days in warm water at a temperature of 18-20°C. It is also recommended to hold the seed for 30-40 minutes before sowing in a weakly concentrated solution of potassium permanganate or potassium permanganate for disinfection. Dragee seeds are not subjected to this procedure and are not soaked.

Immediately before sowing, the seeds must be removed from the water and dried on a paper towel.

How to plant spinach on a windowsill

Growing spinach from seeds at home is possible at any time of the year. Before sowing, the soil in the planting containers should be well moistened. Below is a step by step guide on how to grow spinach on a windowsill in winter for beginners:

• In planting containers filled with drainage and substrate, grooves are made to a depth of 1,5 cm. There should be at least 8 cm between rows;
• Prepared seeds are sown in the grooves made in increments of 8 cm, after which they are sprinkled with soil;
• After that, the soil is moistened with warm water using a spray gun, and the planting containers are covered with glass or film to create a greenhouse effect;
• The containers are cleaned in a warm (18 – 20 ° C) dark place;
• After 5 – 6 days, when the first shoots appear, the film or glass is removed, and the boxes are rearranged on the windowsill.

If you strictly adhere to the above recommendations for preparing the soil and seeds, growing spinach at home will not cause difficulties, even for a beginner in this matter.

If the planting pattern is too thick, it is possible to dive seedlings into separate pots as soon as they have the first 2-3 true leaves. Spinach tolerates transplanting well and quickly takes root in a new place. It is important not to damage the root system in the process, therefore, before removing the seedling from the soil, it must be well moistened.

From the reviews of the craftsmen, it follows that growing spinach from seeds on the windowsill is not the only way to get greens at home. Experienced gardeners in the autumn dig up young bushes that have grown in the garden and transplant them into pots for their further growth at home on a balcony or window.

How to grow spinach in the winter on the windowsill in the apartment

To grow spinach at home and get a crop of quality no worse than in the open field, you should pay attention to regular watering, fertilizing plants, and organize lighting.

Watering

Spinach is a moisture-loving plant, so watering should be plentiful, and air humidity should be high. With insufficient watering, the greens will begin to wither, which can lead to the death of the entire bush. At the same time, it is important to avoid stagnant water in order to avoid the risk of a fungal infection. Young sprouts should be watered with warm (not lower than room temperature) water.

In addition, growing a crop at home during the summer period requires spraying plantings from a sprayer once a day (in the early morning or after sunset), and in winter, when the air is excessively dry, twice a day. In order to provide the necessary air humidity on the windowsills, several open containers of water are placed between the boxes or pots. In addition, you can stretch a plastic film over spinach bushes on a special frame to achieve the effect of a greenhouse.

Growing spinach at home with insufficient soil or air moisture is fraught with the fact that the greens will be small, hard and rough. In addition, overdried soil stimulates the release of flower stalks.

Feeding

Spinach should be fertilized only once during the entire growing season – at the time of transplanting seedlings to a permanent place with complex fertilizers for flowers. Organic fertilizers (mullein, chicken manure) are used as top dressing, but with caution, since their excess affects the taste of the leaves.

Mineral, nitrogen-containing fertilizers should be completely avoided, as spinach greens, especially spinach stalks, tend to actively accumulate nitrite, which makes them unhealthy.

If the cultivation of spinach is carried out in fertile, nutritious soil, the plant does not require additional feeding.

Lighting

Spinach needs at least 10 hours of daylight (optimally 12-14 hours) to get a high yield. Growing plants at home in the summer does not require additional light: natural light is enough. In this case, the boxes must be regularly rotated by 180 ° in order to provide the plant with uniform lighting from all sides. Otherwise, they can form one-sided sockets with abundant greenery, on the one hand, and meager, on the other.

This will not be enough for spinach growing at home on the windowsill in winter, therefore, to ensure its lighting needs, a fluorescent lamp, a spectral LED or a phytolamp is installed above the boxes at a height of 60 cm. In cloudy weather, it should be on all day. On a typical winter day, you need to illuminate for at least 4 hours, after the intensity of sunlight outside the window decreases.

When can you harvest your first crop?

Since the cultivation of spinach at home is recommended from seeds of early ripening varieties, usually on the 25th – 30th day you can get the first crop. By this time, 6 – 8 leaves are formed on each bush, reaching a height of 8 – 10 cm. In terms of taste, spinach greens obtained at home on the windowsill are in no way inferior to a plant growing in open ground. And the beneficial qualities are far superior to store-bought spinach. To harvest the greens, carefully cut with scissors or break the petiole of the leaf. You can not pull, otherwise you can pull out the entire bush or damage its root system.

Growing spinach at home on a windowsill or glazed balcony allows you to enjoy fresh, extremely healthy greens even in winter. However, it is important to remember that it is possible to harvest from one bush only within 1,5 – 2,5 months. After that, the plant produces flower stalks, and its further cultivation is impractical, since the leaves become poisonous. Therefore, it is necessary to update the balcony beds every 2 months in order to be able to harvest the crop obtained at home all year round. At the same time, it is not necessary to take a new substrate every time: growing new bushes is permissible in the old soil. It will be enough just to apply organic fertilizers once every 10 days directly under each plant.

Conclusion

Anyone can grow spinach at home on the windowsill, even if they are new to this field. After all, all that this culture needs is good lighting, regular watering and compliance with the temperature regime. And since spinach is a plant rich in vitamins, minerals and vegetable proteins, growing it is an opportunity to replenish the body’s supply of unusually useful substances during the winter months. Therefore, the possible difficulties that may arise in the process of mastering this science are justified by the harvest obtained with one’s own hands!