Spinach running to seed

[Digeroo]

My Spinach is only about 3 inches tall and is already running to seed.  What did I do wrong?  I fact some of the plants are only 2 inches.  Other people have spinach a couple of feet tall.

[Digeroo]

[Bjerreby]

What you did wrong was possibly:

-    to sow spinach too late in the spring.
-    let it dry out

Spinach doesn't like the hottest weather at all. Far better to sow early April (which is probably what your neighbours have done), and again at the end of August. You can harvest fresh spinach from a big late August sowing between October and March, when it will start to bolt.

Have you noticed how nearly all the seeds offered are F1 hybrid? I think that is because the older "open-pollinated" types like King of Denmark have lost their once fine qualities through commercial seed growers neglecting the job, or so I'd say. Just down the road from me is a huge field of spinach sown for seed, and nobody weeded out the early bolting plants. Their characteristics of bolting quickly must be passed on the the next generation of plants.

This theory was the result of my own bad results this year with Medania. The germination success rate was no higher than 30%, and the plants that grew bolted very quickly. That's why I looked into what was going on in the field up the road, and why I believe F1 hydbrids dominate the seed catalogues.

Maybe I am wrong,  but Digeroo.................you are not alone with your spinach problems!

[grahamjohn]

Yes, its almost certainly poor seed quality. Ive grown my spinach in the shade in extremely rich soil to try and guarentee success, but mine have run to seed as well. I used cheap seed but will be using f1 hybrid next time, its worth a £1 extra to get a decent crop.
Good luck, Graham

[Digeroo]

You are right Bjerreby I probably did both.  They were a bit of an afterthought.  My paths were very wide so I thought I would sown something at the edges. They are suffering also from poor soil preparation and cheap seed.  Not that mad about spinach so do not mind wasting 29p.  Actually I only like the small leaves and there are plenty.

My poor is very sunny, on a slope and very gravelly.

Will do as you suggest and try for a late crop.

Thanks for your help

[Hector]

Hope its ok to resurrect this post. My spinach and perpetual spinach boted last year. I used cheap seed....I see you folks are recommending F1's....any particular one??????

[Jeannine]

If you want spinach in the summer months try TYEE, it is designed for just this purpose and is very slow to bolt. If you can't find it in the UK  and you really want to try it I can send some over.

XX Jeannine

[Robert_Brenchley]

I use leaf beet for exactly that reason. Maybe we need to look at suppliers and try to find some more reliable spinach; it'll always have a tendency to run to seed, but I won't use F1's apart from sweet corn. If we can get hold of a better strain of open pollinated spinach, or even develop one from an F1, then it should be possible to preserve it.

They're outbreeders, and advice from the HSL is to cage them, with twice as many female as male plants in the cage; they suggest four female to two male. You'd need to rogue out any plant which ran to seed early, so you'd need a decent strain that didn't leave you with widely scattered plants to save the seed from, unless you were in a position where cross-pollination with someone else's plants was unlikely.

I wasn't thinking abot spinach at the time, but the HSL did offer a couple of spinach varieties this year, one of which was described as 'slow to go to seed'. Maybe next year, unless I find anything earlier.