Last edited by shiny on November 09, 2026. View history
A variety of chard
A mid green leaf beet with light green midribs that was once widely grown in New Zealand. A reliable, hardy cropper that keeps producing when it is too hot or short of water or nutrients. Needs fertile ground. Sow in trays in spring and early autumn, prick out at 2.5 cm and transplant at 30 cm when about 7 cm tall.
A plant grows with warmth, not with days. A growing degree day is one day's worth of useful warmth: how many degrees the day's average temperature is above the lowest temperature the crop grows at. Add them up from planting and you know how far along the crop is, whatever the calendar says.
Say that lowest temperature is 10°C. A day averaging 17°C gives 7 growing degree days. A day averaging 8°C gives none, as it is too cold for the crop to grow. That is why the same lettuce takes about 50 days in a summer and 90 in an autumn: it needs the same total warmth either way.
For perpetual spinach, the FAO EcoCrop database gives a lowest growing temperature of 5°C and a shortest growing cycle of 50 days at its best temperature, about 750 growing degree days to a first harvest.
Where you've told us where your garden is, we use this and the weather there to predict when your perpetual spinach will be ready to harvest. We don't use it for how long a plant lives or when it finishes: we go by what members have logged for that.
Only plantings by members who have set their locations are shown.
by shiny,
We've been rock and rolling with 7.7 Earthquake at midnight and i lost count of how many 6-pointer aftershocks - and a tsunami evacuation.
Super tired, this morning we went home for about 90 minutes sleep - and then went looking for something normal (instead of our wavy shaken up house). Sc…
artichokes
perpetual spinach
chives
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Sign in or sign up to track your perpetual spinach harvests.If sown now, expect a first harvest in about 50 to 150 days.
From the growing cycle in the FAO EcoCrop database, which is the same wherever it is grown.
Data from the FAO EcoCrop database for Beta vulgaris var. cicla
| Family / Taxonomy | Magnoliopsida Caryophyllidae Caryophyllales Chenopodiaceae |
|---|---|
| Life form | herb |
| Life span | biennial |
| Habit | acaulescent (or rosette plants) |
| Optimal soil depth | medium (50-150 cm) |
| Optimal soil texture | medium |
| Optimal soil fertility | high |
| Optimal soil drainage | well (dry spells) |
| Optimal soil salinity | low (<4 dS/m) |
| Photoperiod | long day (>14 hours) |
Resources outside Growstuff.
Perpetual Spinach
Photos
shiny harvested not specified.
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