5 Benefits Of Growing Spinach Indoors

What's better than a houseplant? An edible houseplant! This article on how to grow spinach indoors will look at growing potted spinach inside so you can have fresh greens all year round.

There are five benefits to growing spinach indoors. 1) You can grow fresh spinach without a garden. 2) You will be able to grow this cool-season plant in the heat of summer, and 3) you can grow it in the deep freeze of winter. Growing spinach indoors also enables you to provide 4) just the right amount of light, and 5) give all the food and water your spinach needs to thrive.

Spinach is an easy to grow, healthy vegetable that will produce a number of harvests from a single plant. Inside the protection of your home, you can also grow spinach year-round for a truly continual harvest of fresh greens. Let's take a look at growing spinach as your next houseplant.

How To Grow Spinach Indoors

If you buy bunches of healthy spinach from the grocery store will can start growing your spinach from the roots . However, spinach is just as easy to grow from seeds, and one small seed pack will produce more than enough spinach for you and your family for a year.

In another article, we go into details about how to grow spinach in pots . In this article, we are going to look at why it is good to keep those pots inside.

There are a number of benefits to grow your spinach indoors. When you grow your spinach indoors, you can:

1. Eat fresh spinach without a garden
2. Grow spinach in the heat of summer
3. Grow spinach in the winter
4. Give your spinach the right amount of "sunlight"
5. Feed and water spinach whenever it needs

1. Eat Fresh Spinach Without A Garden

Every bite of food that you grow yourself reduces your carbon footprint and gives you healthier and more nutritious food. Even if you live in a small apartment, you can still make the move towards self-sufficiency by growing this easy-to-grow vegetable indoors. As you pick your spinach leaves, the plant will continue to produce more. In this way, a few pots of spinach will give you a bountiful harvest. There are a number of health benefits to keeping indoor plants , and it is even better when you can eat them, too.

Photo by Louis Hanselon Unsplash

On top of that, growing a house plant greatly adds to the aesthetics of the room. Ornamental pots are very beautiful and can become part of your room decor. Or, you can turn it into a craft project and decorate your own pot.

A balcony will help a lot to give your spinach a breath of fresh air, but even that isn't necessary. Below, we will look at ways to keep your plant healthy and thriving without going outside.

2. Grow Spinach In The Heat Of Summer

Spinach is a cool-season plant, which means that it does not grow well during the summer. When temperatures rise over 23° C (73° F), the plant will quickly start to bolt. A bolting plant starts going to seed as a self-preservation method, and all the nutrients go into seed production that would otherwise be growing healthy and delicious leaves.

Many gardeners do not even grow spinach over the summer, but you can if you keep it indoors. Most modern homes are so well insulated, that they will often stay cool during a summer heatwave. Older homes will almost always have a cold pocket that stays cool no matter what. We live in an old (very) poorly insulated farmhouse. During the heat of summer, our inside temperature is often higher than our outside temperature. However, our basement used to be an old root cellar, and it stays cool and damp through summer's worst.

If the temperature in your house gets too hot in the summer, move your spinach pot into the coolest spot and make sure it is out of direct sunlight. This will help keep your spinach from bolting and you will be able to enjoy it all summer long.

3. Grow Spinach In The Winter

Just because spinach is a cool-season plant, doesn't mean you can grow it all winter long. Many areas are temperate enough that spinach can be planted outside in winter, but you will probably have more success cultivating it in the comfort of your own home. If you live in an area with heavy snowfall or very cold winters (or both), growing anything outside is completely impractical. Growing spinach indoors will allow you to have fresh, homegrown vegetables during the off-season.

In the winter, most people's houses are the perfect temperature for germinating and growing spinach. You can plant your spinach in a pot on the windowsill, or you can provide artificial light.

READ NEXT: 8 Common questions about growing vegetables indoors over winter.

4. Give Your Spinach The Right Amount Of "Sunlight"

Another reason that spinach will bolt is if it gets too much sunlight. Generally speaking, more than 14 hours of sunlight a day will stimulate the plant to produce seeds. When your spinach is indoors, you can easily regulate how much sunlight it gets.

In the spring and fall, try and keep your pots in a window that receives as much sunlight as possible. This will probably be sufficient for your plants to grow. In the summer, consider moving the pots to a spot where it doesn't get the full bore of the sun's rays. In winter, keeping the plant in a brightly lit window is ideal, but you might find you need to supplement the sun.

Image by Carmen Edenhofer

Daylight LED bulbs are a great, energy-efficient way to provide extra light to your spinach pots. Even replacing your ceiling light with a daylight bulb might provide a sufficient amount of light. If you are not home enough to ensure the lights stay on, a simple solution is to place a lamp with a timer beside your pot. You can set it to turn on in the morning and off in the evening and provide just the right amount of light.

If you want to go all out, there are a number of LED grow lights on the market that will allow you maximize your indoor spinach production.

5. Feed And Water Spinach Whenever It Needs

Spinach is a heavy feeder, which means that it needs lots of nutrients to have healthy, vigorous growth. Providing plenty of compost at planting time is the healthy and natural way to get your plants started, but they might need supplementing if you continue to grow them all year long.

Avoid chemical fertilizers whenever possible, as they are neither good for the soil, the environment, or for you. Instead, there are a number of natural fertilizers and soil amendments available. Here is an article that goes into great detail about different organic fertilizers and how they benefit your plants .

Water is another important factor with indoor plants. In the garden, most plants are subject to the fickle rain that may or may not fall on them. Indoors, however, you can ensure that your spinach receives the right amount of water for perfect growth. Spinach does not do well in overly wet or soggy soils so make sure you don't water them too much. Generally speaking, give the pots some water when the top of the soil feels dry.

Another plus side is that indoor plants don't usually require as much water as outdoor ones. So, again you can reduce your environmental impact by growing indoors.

Worried that your indoor plants are missing out on the rain? When a rainy day is in the forecast, just put you pots outside to enjoy mother nature's sprinkler, and then bring it back indoors when the shower is over.