Growing Marketable Spinach in Boxes
Winter Lake participates in a farmers market. The farmers market customers demand the freshest produce possible. It was reasoned that the freshest produce is picked immediately before sale to the customers. To find the best ways of getting the freshest produce to the customers, several methods were tried.
The most successful method was to grow the produce in boxes that were taken to the market. The produce was harvested from the boxes in the presence of the customer and the sale was made. This resulted in the freshest produce available. This method was very popular with the customers. They had the experience of seeing the produce harvested and also having the freshest produce possible. This method was simple to implement and had few drawbacks.
One produce item grown was spinach. When spinach is harvested for sale, it quickly grows limp if not refrigerated. At farmers markets, it is hard to keep the spinach fresh. Another problem is that unsold spinach does not store well and so is usually composted, resulting in a loss of income.
To overcome the drawbacks of spinach, boxes were tried as a growing method. This proved successful with spinach.
The spinach variety grown was a short type of New Zealand spinach. The best soil was a rich, slightly sandy loam. The minimum soil depth was eight inches. The largest boxes used for the market were twelve inches by twelve inches. Larger boxes proved to be too heavy to conveniently transport.
The spinach was sown in a grid with a spacing of two inches. When the spinach was three inches high, it was thinned to four inches. This allowed for seed germination failure. The spinach box was completely filled when harvesting started. Harvesting was done when the spinach was six inches high.
The overall quality of the spinach was high. There was no waste due to unsold spinach. The customers liked having the spinach harvested in front of them and all the spinach sold. The largest outer leaves of the spinach were harvested at sale time. This allowed the spinach to produce several harvests. The overall quality of the spinach was high.
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