Kitchen Garden

Simon Courtauld

As an amateur kitchen gardener with limited space, I have decided over the years that there are a few vegetables that are not worth growing. One of these, from my experience several years ago, is spinach. It needs a lot of watering, but is still liable to bolt and run to seed in dry weather, and is susceptible to mildew. My own crop scarcely produced enough leaves to fill a tablespoon when cooked. I know that successional sowings are recommended, but I had better things to do with the ground.

The much better option is to grow spinach beet, also known as perpetual spinach. It doesn’t quite live up to its name but has none of the disadvantages of the so-called true spinach. From seed sown in early May – I now use taped

seed which avoids the need for thinning – we can continue to pick handfuls of spinach at least until late autumn. The leaves are large and the more the plants are cut, the more vigorously they seem to come again. Having been left to overwinter, the plants will renew their growth this spring before Easter, and should last until the end of May before going to seed.

The nutritional benefits claimed for spinach – rich in vitamins, calcium and iron – are also present in spinach beet and in its close relative Swiss chard (aka seakale beet). Its only connection with Switzerland is the 19th-century Swiss botanist who named it to distinguish chard from spinach. And it is well worth growing, both for its leaves and the thick, crisp stems, which may come in different colours and should be cooked separately.

The chard which I sowed in late August produced plants large enough to survive the winter, with occasional fleece protection. I am expecting them to start growing again during March, giving us a good crop through spring and summer. The variety Bright Lights, with white, red and yellow stems, provides attractive colour among the green vegetables in the rest of the kitchen garden; it will also look well in a flower border.