Grow Spinach Indoors – An Easy Guide

If you, like me, like growing your own vegetables but you lack in space then planting your veggies in a pot or in a container is a great solution. Not to mention that you don’t have to have a garden or that you don’t have to depend on the weather conditions! Now, let’s learn more on grow spinach indoors easily.

First thing I want you to have in mind is that you don’t need much experience in order to succeed in growing your plants indoors. You’ll only need a strong will, a bit of time and a couple of essential bits to help you start your indoor vegetable garden.

Requirements For Planting And Growing Spinach Indoors

Before we get into how to grow spinach indoors, I want to share with you a list of essential things you’ll need to plant and maintain your spinach. These are just some suggestions of what I tend to use, but if you have something similar, you are more then welcome to use it. Without further ado, this is the list:

1. Pot or a container that is at least 15-20 cm deep

My advice here is to go with a container that is quite wide since the spinach needs a lot of space. You can even go for crates, wooden boxes or window boxes.

My top tip for you here would be to use a bit of plastic foil and put it into a wooden box, and voila! Here’s your container! A great way to save some extra pounds.

2. Soil

When it comes to soil, you should use a moistened potting mix which will help the plants grow. The ideal soil PH for growing your spinach indoors is around 6 or 7, so make sure to choose the right one since it plays a massive role at succeeding at gardening.

3. Seeds

Now, depending on whether you want to grow spinach indoors or not, you can buy the seeds in any local garden center or in an organic food shop; these often sell organic seeds. Because taking care of spinach isn’t that hard, I tend to buy the organic seeds. Also, I fertilize and weed out the container occasionally so I don’t have to use any pesticide.

But if you do need pesticides, you can make some on your own. It doesn’t hurt to check this list of beneficial insects for indoor gardening since not all bugs are your enemies.

4. Water

Obviously, you’ll need a bit of water when planting spinach. However, be careful not to overwater your spinach since it could lead to water stagnation that is harmful to any vegetable. It could also make the roots rot and can lead to the appearance of a number of fungal diseases.

The trick here is to find a container or a pot that has some holes on the bottom in order to enable drainage. Keep that in mind if you’re making a DIY container! One more thing – you should also avoid getting the leaves wet.

5. Fertilizers

Fertilizers are a must if you want to grow some delicious spinach indoors. The best fertilizers for spinach, in my humble opinion, are the ones containing nitrogen. Now, you can use time-based fertilizer during your planting process. This one provides nutrients slowly so you don’t have to think about fertilization later on during the process.

The second option is the liquid fertilizer which you’ll have to use in regular intervals to provide enough nutrients for your spinach. If I had to choose between these two options, I would choose the first one especially if you are new to growing your veggies indoors.

However, if you are a skilled gardener and you wish to grow organic spinach indoors, then I would like to introduce you to a third option, which is an organic fertilizer. You can use this one in the middle of the growth process.

If you choose this way, you can use fish emulsion, compost or even banana peels! I’ve even tried making the nitrogen fertilizer at home, but I honestly think it’s not worth the time. I would rather spend it having a nice cup of tea and enjoying my indoor garden!

6. Position

Positioning your containers with spinach depends on the season. Therefore, if you’re planting it during the autumn and winter months when there is little to no sunshine, it is best to keep the containers in a sunny spot.

If, however, you grow spinach indoors during the spring and summer months, it would be better to keep it in a place that has some shade. I remember that in the early days of my long gardening career I’ve made a mistake and left my spinach in a sunny spot during hot July. You can only imagine how wilted it was. It was like I’ve boiled it!

Oh, for those of you that are lucky enough to live in a tropical climate, make sure that you keep your pots with spinach in a place that gets plenty of shade since the hot air is already enough for it.

7. Temperature

Now, this is one of the reasons why I recommend to everyone that they should start their indoor gardens with spinach. There is no fuss with temperature settings. It can germinate in a temperature that is as low as 4-5^oC. However, it’s not recommended to grow spinach indoors at the temperature as low as that. Let’s say that the ideal temperature for growing spinach falls somewhere between 10-27^oC. Just make sure that, if the temperature is higher than that, you put the plants in a shade so they don’t wilt.

The Planting Process

This one is really a piece of cake, even for beginners. You can certainly agree with me that you can easily satisfy most of the requirements. You won’t need to waste money in order to get started with growing spinach indoors and the whole procedure is very easy.

First, we are starting off by taking our pots or containers, whichever you choose. You should fill these up with the soil and at this point, you can choose whether you want to use a time-based fertilizer or not. If you prefer to use other types of fertilizer, you can pass directly to planting your spinach seeds.

When it comes to planting the seeds, you should think about whether you want to harvest your spinach at an early stage, maybe for a fresh, delicious salad, or you want to let it grow to its full potential. Depending on this, you should space out your seeds. Now, if your goal is to harvest some baby spinach, you can leave the space as small as 5cm, which, strangely enough, gives the spinach plenty of space. If, on the other hand, you wish to let the leaves grow to their full size, it would be best to leave at least 12-13cm between the seeds.

Once planted, cover the seeds with a light layer of soil and add some water. What is left now is that you put the container in the right position so that the container gets enough sunlight but not too much.

Taking Care Of Spinach

As we’ve already established, there is really not that much to worry about when you grow spinach indoors. However, I would like to share with you my tips that might help you grow some delicious and nutritious spinach.

Mulching

I tend to mulch some of the plants that I grow even in pots, as it helps the soil retain its moisture. I would recommend this especially if you’re space gets too hot and the air is dry.

Keep Your Eye On Pests And Deceases

Although it’s not really common to have pests in your indoor garden, keeping your eye on the spinach can’t harm. This way you can prevent the slugs from eating it or aphids attacking your little indoor garden.

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