This is a blog post on growing and harvesting strawberry spinach. Also known as strawberry blite, blite goosefoot. A plant native in North America and it is grown throughout the United States and Canada. It dates back to the 1600 century in Europe. It is related to spinach. However, the berries are not and they don’t share the same flavor apart from the color.
It is relatively easy to grow and the harvest is quite quick. It is great to serve in salads during the summer. If the frost is not too severe strawberry spinach can overwinter and hence grown as perennial. Otherwise, it is grown as annual. Once the strawberry spinach plants start to seed it will grow back again next year. A process called the self seed.
Growing and harvesting strawberry spinach
Strawberry spinach needs to grow from seeds. I got mine from eBay and seed supplier online called Seekay horticultural. Sow the seeds under covers and plant out once the risk of frost is over. It is possible to sow the seeds till May. Due to warm weather, it will encourage quicker growth. Once the seedlings are ready to plant out give them some space to allow them to grow. Grow them in a sunny spot in a good drain soil. After a few weeks 6 weeks, you will find young green like tiny berry-like at the end of the stems. this will later turn red.
Harvest the berries once it turns reds. they great to eat on its own although they don’t taste anywhere near a strawberry. Leaves are edible as well. The taste has been described as a nutty flavor.
Thank you for reading and dropping by. Do have a look at my other grow your own food tips like growing and harvesting perpetual spinach and alpine strawberry.
