Harvesting spinach

Last summer, I went to the Natural Gardner, looking for some kind of lettuce plant that I could grow in the heat.  They recommended the New Zealand Spinach from lonestarnursery.com.  



The description is:  Very old heirloom.  Tropically perennial/temperately annual.  Does not bolt in hot weather.  High vitamin C: 60 days

Well, the spinach petered along all summer and did virtually nothing. It may not bolt in hot weather, but it also doesn't really grow!  But when the cold weather hit in the fall, it started to take off. 

The spinach has a very mild flavor. Unfortunately, Kyle decided he didn't like it in a salad.  It has a slightly fuzzy underside, and he didn't like the texture. So I haven't done much with it.

By this spring, the spinach plant has taken over quite a bit of space!  I decided to cut it waaaay back, and then harvest and freeze the spinach.  If nothing else, I can use it for saag paneer or in spinach artichoke dip.  I harvested *a lot* of spinach!

It took me about two hours to pull all of the leaves off of the plants and prepare them for blanching.

But in the end, I froze a total of 11 cups of spinach.  Three bags of two cups, and five bags of one cup.  I also had a bunch left over to share with a neighbor :o)

I was going to pull both plants up entirely.  But decided to instead just cut it back a whole lot.  After pulling the description up from when I planted it in July, I am glad I did.  It describes itself as an perennial.  I might get more from it next spring!