Skip to main content
Gifts from The Morning Star
A spinach with a mighty flavour kick

MAT COWARD sings the praises of the Giant Winter’s full-depth, earthy and ferrous flavour perfect for rich meals in the dark months

Giant Winter / Pic: Krish Dulal/CC

GIANT WINTER is an ominous name, I always think, sounding like a doom-laden long-range weather forecast. But less fancifully, it’s a cultivar of spinach which you could sow now for cropping through the winter and into early spring.

There are several others available, and most seed catalogues and online shops list at least one, but Giant Winter is possibly the best-known and surely the hardiest.

Its remarkably large leaves stand without problems through frost and snow. On a very open site strong winds can be more of a trouble, but a little protection by means of cloches or fleece covers can make a big difference.

I find winter spinach much more “spinachy” than summer spinach — a good or bad thing, I suppose, depending on personal taste. I love the full-depth, earthy, ferrous flavour, perfect for rich meals in the dark months.

But if you’re borderline on spinach, then this probably isn’t the stuff to convert you.

The seeds of summer spinach won’t grow in winter, so make sure you start with the right packet. You can either sow the seeds directly into the soil, in drills about three quarters of an inch (2cm) deep and 12” (30cm) apart, or start them in pots or modules for planting out later.

There’s only one real advantage to the latter scheme — it helps the seedlings avoid slugs and snails during early growth. Where I live the summer drought has broken quite emphatically, and I expect the garden molluscs to be making up for lost time.

While summer spinach prefers moist ground, the winter type needs above all to avoid waterlogging. In a British winter it’s unlikely to dry out, whereas if it spends time sitting in cold puddles it won’t thrive.

One thing all spinach needs is rich, deep soil to fuel its rapid and plentiful green growth.

I aim for a final gap of around 8 inches (20cm) between each plant. It seems sensible that a huddled solidarity will give each spinach protection against the wind, but at the same time this spacing allows air to move freely between the plants, so minimising the risk of mildew. And, of course, they need room to reach their full size.

When you come to pick spinach it’s important not take too many leaves at one time from any one plant. A rule of thumb often quoted is that you shouldn’t remove more than a third of the foliage.

Summer spinach is often grown for baby leaves, but with the winter type it’s best to use the large, deeply coloured outside leaves, letting the smaller ones at the centre carry on growing.

Harvest by cutting, not pulling, so as not to loosen the plant’s roots.

The final harvest from winter spinach generally comes around the beginning of March, when the plants put on a sudden spurt of new growth. The leaves taken then have the sweet, fresh flavour of spring.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
HISTORY MADE: A plaque at the Old Bailey dedicated to the case of William Penn and William Mead — and the jury who acted on their conscience
Features / 2 September 2025
2 September 2025

The heroism of the jury who defied prison and starvation conditions secured the absolute right of juries to deliver verdicts based on conscience — a convention which is now under attack, writes MAT COWARD

CAUSE AND EFFECT: Maturing apples and and apple pie / pics: (L to R) George Chernilevsky and Roozitaa both CC
Gardening / 16 August 2025
16 August 2025

As apple trees blossom to excess it remains to be seen if an abundance of fruit will follow. MAT COWARD has a few tips to see you through a nervy time
 

‘SEDITION AND BLASPHEMY’: (L to R) Blackfriars Rotunda, 1820 - view from the top of the Albion Mills; a political rowdiness / Pic (L to R): Frederick Birnie; Old and New London both Public domain
Politics / 15 August 2025
15 August 2025

While an as-yet-unnamed new left party struggles to be born, MAT COWARD looks at some of the wild and wonderful names of workers’ organisations past that have been lost to time

crime
Crime Fiction / 12 August 2025
12 August 2025

Timeloop murder, trad family MomBomb, Sicilian crime pages and Craven praise

Similar stories
(L to R) Wong Boks and a Chinese cabbage and tofu soup  Pics (L to R): Bayartai/CC and NeoBatfreak/CC
Features / 19 July 2025
19 July 2025

MAT COWARD presents a peculiar cabbage that will only do its bodybuilding once the summer dies down

YUMMY: (L to R) Winter squash; Roasted delicata squash. Pic: (L to R) Derek Ramsey (Ram-Man)/Chanticleer Garden/CC and Sarah Stierch/CC
Features / 17 May 2025
17 May 2025

MAT COWARD rises over such semantics to offer step by step, fool-proof cultivating tips

Tree spinach
Features / 12 April 2025
12 April 2025
Well, MAT COWARD did, and here’s his introduction to it
Garlic chives on a plate
Gardening / 9 November 2024
9 November 2024
MAT COWARD declares this plant to be one that ‘everyone should grow’