What’s Green and Good for you?
I love spinach, but when I was growing up,
my Mum would never cook spinach because she said it went to nothing. The first time I really tasted it was when Paul and I were on holiday in Majorca soon after we were married.
We had a wonderful meal in a small restaurant
and we both had monk fish. it was served with delicately cooked spinach and ever since then i love to serve sh with spinach. Our eldest son, Joel always loved as a child as he thought it made him strong like popeye.
Spinach really is good for you, not only is it
a rich source of vitamins A ,B, C, E, and K, it contains minerals such as magnesium and zinc which are good for the skin as well as folic acid which is recommended for women through their pregnancy. Spinach, along with other green vegetables, is packed full of iron, having more in it than a beefburger!
I like to add spinach to most dishes, usually to curries and pasta sauces at the end of cooking and just before serving, for colour and vitamin content. The frozen version can also be used in this way. The small picked leaves make an excellent salad addition and Eggs Florentine just wouldn’t be the same without spinach.
GROWING SPINACH
Spinach is easy to grow, and if you plan properly you can have it all the year round. Successional sowing every couple of weeks is the key.
Sow in large pots in February and March and keep them in a greenhouse or away from frost. I frequently use a wig wam of clear polythene, like a cloche.
Late April and May you can sow in beds in
the garden plot. Sow every two weeks until September, and you can harvest right through until November.
Don’t over fertilise spinach, it collects nitrates and can be dangerously loaded. Keep the nitrate level to last year’s potato patch.
Spinach!