Over-wintered Kale & Spinach

Just a quickie to share with you my harvest this evening. I’m really loving these light evenings now and spent a good half hour pottering around the garden tonight. In my basket went some Kale and some New Zealand Spinach.

Both crops have been growing over winter and have sprung back into life over the last few weeks to enable me to bring in a super-early harvest. I treated the Spinach with some plant food last week and it’s come up more lush and green than ever. Very worthwhile.

Tonight, these are accompanying my Sausage and Cherry Tomato bake (Jamie again) with an nice glass of white Chenin Blanc – well it is Monday after all!

I love good food!

Category: Vegetables     Tagged: ,

11 Comments on “Over-wintered Kale & Spinach”

  1. I have just planted seeds for New Zealand silverbeet (a bit like swiss chard) and New Zealand pumkin, butternut and buttercup sent over to me by my Mum. They don’t seem to grow really tasty pumpkin here in the UK

    Margaret

  3. Perhaps you might be able to answer some questions about NZ spinach? did you really overwinter it? I read that it was not hardy and would be knocked back by frosts.
    Do I get one plant from one seed?
    Any tips for growing?
    Hope you can help, I’ve just planted some seeds.

  4. Hi

    Just to say I arrive at my office each day and switch on my emails and when I read MTP mail it really makes me feel happy for some reason. I love reading about your garden, family, etc.

    So thank you for making my “office mornings” pleasant.

    Yvonne.

    p.s. I must try and do more gardening!!!!

  6. Matron – I did indeed over winter it. I expected it to die every time we got a frost and at one point it was under a few inches of snow, but soldier on it did!
    And now that the weather is warming up it’s growing like crazy.
    That said, mtp is a very sheltered garden. It’s walled and sunken, so there’s no such thing as wind here. Maybe that helped.

    The Spinach plants are quite small and you pick leaves off each plant as they grow. So make sure to sow lot’s of seed otherwise you won’t get enough leaves. If you do it this way you should be able to treat them like a cut and come lettuce.

    They’re a cold weather crop so sowing them now is a good idea. Any hint of dry or hot weather and they’ll bolt. They’re very susceptible to this.
    Good luck

  8. I sow summer spinach varieties late in the year ( Sept-Oct ) and they seem to overwinter even in a cold season like this year, leafing up again now when you really crave some fresh green stuff. Look out for spinach varieties designed for this kind of cultivation especially from Seeds of Italy and the red stemmed ‘Bordeaux’ overwinters well too. True spinach is so much nicer than chard and perpetual spinach which can be literally ‘tough as old boots’ surviving the cold but turning leathery in the process.

  9. Wonderful! My chickies got to my spinach so I have to start over again, but it is fun no matter what.

    Love your photos on the blog.

  10. I rarely comment on blogs but yours I had to stop and say Great Blog!!

  11. Kale is so good for you and I think alot of people forget that, we always grow Kale, have you ever tried roasted kale? Heres what I do with it

    you will need the following

    4 cups firmly-packed kale
    1 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
    1 tsp. good-quality sea salt

    Preheat oven to about 375 degrees F. Then wash and trim the kale: making sure you peel off all the tough stems. You can do this by folding the kale leaves in half and stripping the stems off. Toss with extra virgin olive oil. Roast it for five minutes. Then turn kale over and roast for another 7 to 10 minutes or until kale turns brown and becomes paper thin and brittle. When that has happened you should remove it from oven and sprinkle with a good sea salt such as Maldon. Serve it straight away.
    Mark