[Irene]

I had planted extra spinach last year as autumn was starting due to its love of the cooler weather.

There was a row that was not quite mature when winter truly set in and I thought to myself...well, timing is everything and not too much else.

When it finally warmed up enough for the tidying of the garden area to start I noticed that the spinach was throwing out LOTS of green leaf...in fact, its looked like the photo below for at least a month.

We have cold winters where I live with our average HIGH for January and February being a little less than 0 degrees.

Is this unusual or is this a feature of spinach (..and this is a regular spinach, a Bloomsdale Savoy) that I should be taking advantage of? We use the veg like crazy and I'm thinking that if I can place a few rows under straw mulch for a March/April crop I'm certainly going to be doing so.

[Snoop]

You should be OK. I'm not familiar with the spinach you sowed, but here we hit minus 15º C regularly in the winter at night (though admittedly the soil is warmed during warmer daytimes), and spinach overwinters well here. Looks like a lovely crop.

Is Bloomsdale quite tender (weatherwise and on the plate)?

[Irene]

Bloomsdale is a "go to" variety here in the States. Its good for freezing and if stemmed is excellent for cooking though I'm experimenting with some other varieties for my baby salad spinach.

This year I'd like to pay more attention to my spinach as we do use a lot of it in cooking and last year I failed to freeze any, very much a waste. We do have the bolting problem when the heat turns up in July and August...but its easy and fast enough to grow that isn't really a problem.

I just had NO idea that it could be used as such an early spring crop in this climate. This is wonderful news.

What varieties do you grow in Spain?

[Snoop]

To be honest, most of the old boys round here grow seed from their bolted spinach. I imagine no-one knows what they're growing.

However, I went into one of our local hardware shops the other day, and judging by the packets of seeds on display and the giant polythene bags of "home-grown" seed, I'd say the most popular named brand is Viroflay. It would seem to be readily available in the States, where it is described as a "cool-season" spinach for sowing in late summer or early spring.

It gets a good write-up here:

https://today.agrilife.org/2013/10/15/monster-spinach/

I might give it a try myself this year.

[NewSteve]

I've bought some "Viroflex" for sowing this autumn, which according to Real Seeds is 'basically the old heirloom "Monstreux de Viroflay"':

http://www.realseeds.co.uk/cookinggreens.html

And apparently it will crop until the end of March in the UK, although who knows if it may last longer.