Last edited on October 25, 2019. View history
Okinawan Spinach
A variety of spinach
How to sow Okinawan spinach: Stem cuttings
Sun requirement for Okinawan spinach: Plant in Full Sun
Okinawan Spinach is a perennial green leafy vegetable in the Asteraceae (Daisy) family that that is native to Eastern Asia and grown as a vegetable and medicinal plant. The plant has short stems and closely spaced, deeply cut, glossy green leaves that are either green or purple on the underside. Okinawan Spinach is heat tolerant and somewhat drought tolerant, but not frost tolerant. It can be grown in containers, outdoors, or used as a ground cover. The sprawling stems will root in moist soil if not pruned. Leaves and new shoots are harvested by pruning (to encourage additional shoots and deter blooming). Leaves are added to salads and smoothies or stir-fried. Leaves become slimy if overcooked. Stems and roots are brewed into a tea.
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Okinawan spinach facts
Lifespan
Height
60cmRow Spacing
45cmCrop cycle
Max altitude
Optimal light
What are growing degree days?
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 Okinawan spinach, the FAO EcoCrop database gives a lowest growing temperature of 2°C and a shortest growing cycle of 40 days at its best temperature, about 580 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 Okinawan 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.
Growing Okinawan spinach
- Dig compost into the bed 1 week before sowing
- Water regularly at sowing every week
- Thin the seedlings 2 weeks after sowing
- Weed between the rows 3 weeks after sowing every 2 weeks
- Sow another batch 3 weeks after sowing every month
- Pick the outer leaves at first harvest every week
- Pull out plants that have bolted 6 weeks after first harvest
How members grow Okinawan spinach
Sunniness
Planted from
Plant Okinawan spinach with
Jerusalem artichoke
leek
Video
Where Okinawan spinach grow
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Ecological requirements
Data from the FAO EcoCrop database for Spinacia oleracea L.
| Family / Taxonomy | Magnoliopsida Caryophyllidae Caryophyllales Chenopodiaceae |
|---|---|
| Killing temperature | growth: 0 °C, rest: -7 °C |
| Life form | herb |
| Life span | annual |
| Habit | acaulescent (or rosette plants) |
| Optimal soil depth | shallow (20-50 cm) |
| Optimal soil texture | medium, light |
| Optimal soil fertility | high |
| Optimal soil drainage | well (dry spells) |
| Optimal soil salinity | low (<4 dS/m) |
| Photoperiod | short day (<12 hours), neutral day (12-14 hours), long day (>14 hours) |
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