Winter Spinach Varieties From Johnny's

Hello! My name is Rachel Katz and I run leafy greens trials here at Johnny's. I wanted to clarify something that I encountered on the website the other day. I was on the Spinach webpage and on the left side of the page, there's a list of attributes that you can filter through to help find varieties that you're looking for more easily.

These include seed type, so that's organic or hybrid or open pollinated seeds. Disease resistance – for spinach, that's downy mildew and white rust. And there's also a category called other characteristics. And for spinach, that includes some things that sound very similar. And so I wanted to define those things for you today.

Those are "cold tolerant", "good for overwintering" and "recommended for winter harvest". Cold tolerance basically means will it survive a hard frost? Will it still be marketable after it gets really cold? And for spinach, the answer is a resounding yes. All spinaches are cold tolerant. They can take very, very cold temperatures and still be very high quality on the other side. Good for overwintering is similar, but it basically means you can plant it in the late summer, early fall and carry it through the winter, do some harvesting on it in the winter and/or the early spring. So it's available, but it's not the most productive for that time. Recommended for winter harvest are the varieties that are going to be the most productive during the coldest and darkest days of the year.

We've come to those conclusions on those varieties because of our extensive winter trialing program. So you can feel really confident when you choose one of those varieties for the winter tunnel or even growing outside in the winter, depending on your region. I hope that clarifies a few things. Thanks!

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