If you are watching this video, then you are probably already preparing for winter, even though it is still summer outside and notice that it is in full swing.
But right now you need to make some supplies for the winter, we will talk about real vegetable meat - this is green, juicy, protein-rich spinach.
Spinach is one of the easiest cold hardy crops to grow. The leafy green vegetable grows well in cool weather and short days, so planting spinach for the winter is a good choice for fall or early spring yard work.
Spinach is a fast growing cold season vegetable that can be harvested as early as a month after planting.
What you need to know before planting spinach in order to harvest it in time for winter supplies?
To grow a rich crop of spinach, you need to plant the seeds in the ground as early as possible so that the plant has time to create large, juicy rosettes before the onset of hot weather. Spinach cannot withstand heat. The rise in temperature during summer days causes spinach to set seeds and ripen too quickly, and instead of leaves, a stem grows.
But we need leaves for the winter, not stems!
Therefore, I am a little tricky with spinach sowing.
In order not to plunge it into the summer heat when sowing in the spring, I sow spinach in late autumn, immediately after the first frost, around the time of planting garlic.
My whole trick of growing spinach is that the winter sowing of spinach at the end of the autumn season, when the summer heat is over, allows you to get the first greens already in early April, and sometimes, if the spring is warm, even at the end of March.
Spinach is hardy and can tolerate light frosts, so if you live in a mild climate, you can safely sow it for the winter. In colder climates that experience severe frosts, it is best to protect crops with greenhouse frames or a thick layer of mulch.
Some tips for growing and storing spinach.
As you know, the Persians gave spinach to the world, the Chinese mastered it in the kitchen, the Moors brought it to Europe, to the Spanish lands, in the 11th century.
But the Americans taught us how to freeze and sell frozen spinach. Spinach was the first vegetable in a long line of vegetables to be frozen and sold as a frozen vegetable commodity.
How to freeze spinach for the winter?
Collect in the garden or buy at the market at the height of the green vegetable season, while the prices for such greens are junk, fresh spinach leaves, wash them well, dry them slightly or blot them with a kitchen towel or paper napkins, collect spinach leaves in a kind of slides, pack them in plastic bags, press lightly to release air and send to the freezer.
Let spinach delight you in a delicious green soup or crispy pie on cold, icy winter days.
What do you eat spinach with?
Spinach is an excellent green vegetable, which is ideal not only as an independent vegetable side dish for any meat or fish dish, but now it is very fashionable to use it for soups and pies, you can make vitamin smoothies and vegetable cocktails from it.
Yes, spinach was the first frozen vegetable. But eat it fresh. It is tastier and more nutritious if harvested fresh in the early morning, while it crunches from the moisture that it has saturated in the garden.
Spinach grows well in spring and autumn, the seeds germinate at a temperature of 2-3 degrees Celsius.
The optimum temperature for plant growth is 15-17 degrees. Spinach shoots can easily withstand temperatures down to minus 10 degrees.
Spinach is a long-day vegetable: in order for it to bloom, it is necessary that the daylight hours be at least 15 hours.
Hence the conclusion: sow spinach early in spring or late autumn, when the day is short and you will get beautiful leafy greens of spinach without any arrows for the spring or autumn vitamin table.
Why do I love and sow spinach? Because it is an amazing vegetable. It contains a special chlorophyll, which in its composition is very similar to human hemoglobin - a blood protein that is responsible for the content of iron in our body.
Spinach is very useful for anemia, when the body is prone to various kinds of inflammation and tumors, it has a good effect on the digestion process, strengthens teeth and gums.
But for those who have kidney problems or gout, eating spinach is contraindicated.
And all because spinach is a real vegetable meat rich in protein. 100 grams of spinach contains about 3 grams of protein and 3 grams of carbohydrates.
For comparison: 1 egg contains 6 g of protein, 100 g of chicken meat - about 25 g of protein.
At the end of the video, as always, a useful hint.
If you want to collect juicy, young spinach in the garden all the time, sow several times, with a gap in sowing time of 7-10 days. Water well and the greenery will delight you with juicy green rosettes!
Good harvest!
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Thank you for watching!
10 июн 2022
