My one harvest. I'm in the middle of pulling out my overwintered spinach plants. There are a few that are starting to bolt, but the main issue is that the leaf miners have come weeks early. I don't cover my overwintered spinach as usually I get all the harvests I want before they come. And that is almost true this year too. The first of my spring spinach is just about ready to pick. Young spinach is better for you (less oxalic acid) and it tastes better.
- Greens 0.95 lbs lbs
- Weekly total 0.95 lbs
- Yearly total 40.29 lbs
- Tally -$532.60
Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.
I have leaf miners in my nasturtiums. This is too bad, because I love the taste of nasturtium leaves.
ReplyDeleteYour spinach looks great. I may try and ove winter some this winter. I have not had a problem with leaf miners, the few that I get never get farther than the columbines. I guess they act as a trap crop!
ReplyDeleteLeaf miners in April, that's scary.
ReplyDeleteThat is quite a spinach harvest. Sorry about the leaf miners. I hope the upcoming spring spinach harvest is yummy and remains leaf miner free.
ReplyDeleteI didn't realised that about the oxalic acid - Is that true of other plants like parsley and sorrel?
ReplyDeleteIn general over most plants the older the leaf is the more oxalic acid there is. Also the slower the leaf grows the more oxalic acid. Spinach plants grown with more nitrogen have less oxalic acid content (probably because they grow faster and you pick them younger).
DeleteI'd read to avoid eating spinach raw. Would cooking spinach lessen the oxalic acid? Now I know what to be on the lookout for if there are leaf miners -- thanks for the pest info!
ReplyDeleteDang I wrote a long reply and then google ate it. Let's see if I can do it all again.
DeleteI tend to BOIL my spinach. You can reduce the amount of oxalic acid by up to 50% if you use a large amount of water when you boil. Oxalic acid is water soluble. Other cooking methods won't reduce it.
That being said oxalic acid is a poison, but it would require more spinach than you can eat to actually poison yourself with it. I often eat baby spinach leaves on salads, but I don't like how the older leaves feel to my teeth. Too squeeky for me.
The problem with oxalic acid is that it binds with the metals that your body needs, notably iron and calcium. So if you eat it everyday I would definitely boil it or it might keep you from absorbing enough of these minerals.
I recently read that eating milk products with things containing oxalic acid helps reducing the oxalic acid. Forgot how exactly it works, and I'm too tired to look it up.
DeleteNice looking spinach harvest. I haven't been able to get a good one yet this year. Maybe in the fall...too hot now. Thanks for the info about oxalic acid. I'll be sure to pull the leaves earlier.
ReplyDeletemy asian greens are decimated by leaf miners :(
ReplyDeleteWhat a great harvest! I definitely did not plant enough spinach last fall so we're pulling it a few leaves at a time. Sorry about those leaf miners! I don't think we've experienced those guys yet...I hope we never do...
ReplyDeleteOh, for spinach in such quantities! I refuse to worry about oxalic acid- that and whatever it is in edamame that is supposed to be bad for you. If I avoided these things I'd be bound to replace them with something far worse - like home-delivered dominos pizza for example :)
ReplyDeleteMMMmmm - Ate my spinach yesterday on a pizza with just a few sundried tomatoes and feta... yummo....LMAO 'cuz I just saw L from 500m2 comment about pizza while I typed. Hey- spinach on pizza is good, right? ;-)
ReplyDeleteOh yes. One of my favorite pizzas is caramelized onions, mushrooms, and spinach. All sauteed in a bit of red wine (can't have tomatoes, but this combo is fabulous). Oh so good.
DeleteOh my spinach is long gone and now the mustard is bolting. So greens are down to chard and lambs quarters. Although I might thin the turnips one more time....
ReplyDeleteOh to have such a volume of spinach!
ReplyDeleteOur spinach has started to bolt as well. It is happening several weeks earlier than usual. Just to hot this year!!
ReplyDeleteLearn something new about oxalic acid, thanks.
ReplyDeleteI'm heeeere!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful Harvest!
ReplyDeleteI'm going through spinach deprivation. Only two plants germinated last fall. The spring planted spinach will take another week. Doggone I didn't know spinach was high in oxalic acid. Hope I don't get kidney stones.
ReplyDeleteMost people won't. Only those with one kind of kidney stone problem. There are so many poisons in plants. To worry about any one of them would be insane. I'm getting sick on solanums, but most people wouldn't. It just depends upon your propensity for such things.
DeleteI can not wait for my spinach to be ready. I love spinach. I did get to post my first Harvest this week! It is about time. :)
ReplyDeleteI'm heeeeere too! Thanks Daphne for the wonderful packet of seeds you sent to me! http://randomgardenmn.blogspot.com/2012/04/new-gardening-season-2012.html. I planted two Cherokee Purple seeds and they're germinated. Our son who is ten is watching it very closely. He wants one plant(in name only :) I do all the work, but he gets mentioned as the owner of the plant :)
ReplyDeleteMy kids had plants like that. Usually the pumpkins.
DeleteI too had no idea about oxalic acid in spinach. Not that it matters yet because so far I've failed to germinate every seed I've ever planted :/
ReplyDeleteI love reading the comments on your blog. I learn so much. I would think that early leaf miners have to do with the weird warm winter that so much of the US experienced. Lovely photo of your spinach harvest. The last of my spinach went to our hens long ago.
ReplyDeleteLooks like the weather is weirdly warm all over - we're having a crazy spring here in Austria too.
ReplyDeleteI haven't had spinach in ages. It didn't do well for me on my balcony garden, so I'll stick to chard. Also, chard is prettier.
I knew my parrot can't have too much spinach because of the oxalic acid and its blood thinning properties but I didn't know that older spinach had more in it. Not that my baby parrot will eat spinach when he can have carrots or apples instead. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThat's a great run of spinach. I hope we can have overwintered stuff next year. I'll have to pay close attention to your blog to see how you do it.
ReplyDeleteHi Daphne, Is harvest Monday just for the day or for all week? Not that I have that much yet but someday this summer! (I hope) I love spinach. Disappointed I couldn't garden today as it rained quite a bit. Nancy at Cozy Thyme Cottage
ReplyDeleteWell I do one Harvest Monday each week. Most post on Monday. I do get a few that post later. If you do a harvest post on Thursday for instance. My recommendation is to link it up the next Monday. The later ones don't get as much traffic as the ones posted on Monday.
DeleteI'm catching up for this month with one post for the month. Still harvesting greens, but no real spinach yet for me.
ReplyDeleteNice spinach harvest! It seems that this is going to be a very bad bug year because of the mild winter and warm spring. Our forecast is for upper 80s all week and no rain in sight- not good seed starting in the garden weather. I've never really paid attention to leaf miners, which means I've probably eaten them in my spinach before! Yuck!
ReplyDeleteThe spinach is gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteMy spinach is starting to bolt. Oh well, it was good while it lasted. Harvest looks great.
ReplyDeleteThat spinach looks fantastic. We are just starting to harvest red leaf lettuce. We've been able to harvest herbs all winter (crazily mild winter that we had). Last year you motivated me to do more with vegetables than I had done in years... and now you're motivating me again!
ReplyDeleteI didn't know that about young spinach. We're eating it in quantity -- I really don't want to freeze it. Must pick faster. Yours looks beautiful. Do you grow greens for the summer?
ReplyDeleteI have grown greens all summer long. Not spinach. That is a spring veggie for me. I can't even get it to grow well enough in the fall to pick from it reliably. But some Asian greens are fairly heat resistant. This year I have fewer greens planned for summer harvest. I'll still have chard. Chard doesn't mind the heat at all. But I probably won't have summer lettuce. I might do a few Asian greens. But again I haven't made up my mind.
DeleteThe spinach looks beautiful, but I also like the basket you collected the spinach in.
ReplyDeleteI to have been amazed at how well the winter spinach is doing. I have picked it 5 times and I think I have one last picking. I planted some in the garden in March and it is just starting to come up.
ReplyDeleteSpinach is truly a great winter vegetable.
Nice harvest of over wintered spinach. Are you really worried about the oxalic acid in the spinach or do you just not like the taste/feel it produces in the leaves? My spinach harvests are for such limited periods of time in the spring and fall that I never worry about it and I don't mind the eating quality it imparts, however, I do prefer young spinach so I harvest the leaves when they are smaller which probably does decrease the oxalic acid quite a bit.
ReplyDeleteNo I just hate that squeeky feel when the content is high. So I tend to boil the over wintered spinach to make it feel better. I can't tell a difference in the taste. I love the baby leaves raw though.
DeleteI am so late but I finally got it up! I'm looking forward to spending some time tomorrow checking out more harvests since I wasn't able on Monday.
ReplyDeleteAnd now I have a new research project. Find out about oxalic acid!
http://planetpooks.com/?p=4605
Nice crop of spinach. How do you preserve it?
ReplyDeletehttp://daphnesdandelions.blogspot.com/2012/04/thursdays-kitchen-cupboard_19.html
DeleteI wrote about it recently.