In message , Nick Maclaren
writes

In article ,
"bnd777" writes:
| Anyone experience of growing spincah in the South of the UK ?
|
| Can i grow it in the winter in a cold frame or a greenhouse ?

Effectively, no. No light. You can't grow ANYTHING here in
the depths of winter, at least not effectively. What you can do
is to start it off in (say) February.


That seems to me a bit defeatist. Just because things grow slowly now
doesn't mean they're not worth growing at all, particularly if you can
give them some protection. This year and last, gardening in a frost
pocket in North London (it was -6 here last night), I've picked salad
and other leaves - including spinach - right through the winter months,
both in the open and under plastic or fleece.

Where I would agree with Nick is that things don't get started very well
at this time of year - seedlings seem to need a lot more light than is
available now - so in my experience it's best to sow in August and early
September.

On spinach specifically, last year I grew Giant Winter, Viroflay and
Samish, all sown in the open in late August/early September. Samish and
Viroflay were under fleece from mid October, Giant Winter in the open.
I got quite a lot of "baby" leaves from the Samish, but not much from
Viroflay, which went a bit yellow - I felt it didn't like being under
fleece, which obviously does cut down the light. The best by far was
Giant Winter, but that didn't really start producing much until April.

This year I meant to get them all in earlier but didn't quite manage it.
So far I've had several small pickings of Samish from a 1 metre row sown
on Aug 23rd and about 2 meals' worth from 2 metres of Giant Winter sown
on Sept 7th, this year both covered with fleece when frost has
threatened but otherwise in the open.

--
Max Wright
www.wys-systems.demon.co.uk/plotcrop