September is planting time for both the fall and winter spinach gardens. Unfortunately, the soil temperature is too warm to enable spinach seed to germinate. Soil temperature in September used to be lower, but global warming has reached Nebraska. Ideal soil temperature is 55-60, but I have found September 1 temperatures closer to 90-100. Fall spinach is risky, and I have had to adapt.

On September 1, I start spinach seeds inside in a cooler. I spread out a wet paper towel and sprinkle spinach seed on it, cover it with another wet paper towel, roll it up, and put it in a plastic bag. The bag goes into a cooler along with a thermometer and a reusable ice pack. I manage the temperature inside the cooler by changing out ice packs to hold the temperature between 55 and 60 degrees F. I check the seed every morning, and within a few days, the first seeds will begin to sprout. I remove these seeds at the first sign of life, and I head out to the garden. Planting sprouted seeds in hot soil will most likely kill them, but I just keep replanting. I use mulch to try to lower the soil temperature.

In the fall garden, I plant seeds 7 inches apart in rows 7 inches apart in a patch that measures 52 X 47 inches (the dimension of the largest of my small cold frames) for a total of 42 plants. I begin by poking a sharpened scrap of lumber into the dirt to create a cavity about an inch square at the surface and 4 inches deep. Next, I fill this cavity with water mixed with liquid starter fertilizer and wait for it to soak in. Next, I fill in the cavity with potting soil leaving a depression a half inch below the surface of the ground, and I pour in some more water - just a little. The sprouted seed goes in the depression, and a sprinkling of potting soil goes over the top, even with the surface of the soil. Just a little more moisture goes on top to make sure the whole growing environment is moist. With the first time through the garden, I put two sprouted seeds in each hole.

Once I have all the sprouted seeds planted that I have for that day, I cover the entire fall garden with a double layer of screen to keep the temperature as low as possible yet allow light to penetrate to the soil surface. In a few days, I'll have each available spot in the fall garden planted, and I'll suspend sprouting my inside seed and wait to see what emerges from the ground.

After a week, I start soaking and sprouting more spinach seed. By then, some spots in the fall spinach garden will have two seedlings emerging. Other spots will have a single seedling, and some spots will fail to produce a seedling at all. These get another chance with a fresh, sprouted seed, but since the soil is already prepared, it's just a matter of creating a half-inch deep depression in the potting soil, putting in a sprouted seed, covering, and watering, and waiting.

September 15 is the planting date for the winter garden. On that date, I begin the soaking/sprouting process once again, but I sprinkle far more seed on to the wet paper towel, and into the cooler they go. In the few days I have before any sprouting occurs, I finish my soil preparation. As with the fall spinach garden, I mix fine compost and fertilizer into the top five inches of the soil and water. Since my winter garden is actually composed of six sections, each the size of a 3' X 6 1/2' sliding glass door, I create a slope within each section so water drains outward from the center of each section. Spinach does not grow well in low spots where water tends to pool.

In the winter spinach garden, I allow the plants more room. I plant seeds 8 inches apart in rows 8 inches apart. Allowing a reasonable buffer around the outside of each cell, that makes nine rows of four plants in each row for a total of 216 plants in the winter garden. With 42 more spinach plants growing in the fall spinach garden, that's 258 spinach seedlings to get established. It will take many trips through the garden thinning plants and replanting spots that fail to produce seedlings to accomplish it. I keep planting and waiting in repeated cycles in both the fall and winter gardens until every spot has a healthy seedling.

Soft dirt and tender seedlings are a sore temptation to the varmints who live in the neighborhood and watch everything I do in the garden. The screens protect against a too-hot sun at midday. Chicken wire protects against squirrels searching for and burying acorns, and baited, loaded spring traps protect against foraging mice and voles. But defenses sometimes fail, so I keep replanting. Replanting is the only answer I have to loss in the garden.

Harvesting of greens in September is limited to lettuce. Early September is a difficult time to find lettuce ready to harvest, but by the end of September, lettuce is plentiful and delicious. This picture was taken September 15, 2016.

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