Best Spinach Varieties for Scotland

Spinach is quick and easy in Scotland's cool weather, but it boltsA plant switching early into flowering and seed production, usually triggered by stress, after which leaves, roots or bulbs turn bitter or unusable. Full page →, flowering and ending the harvest, in both cold and hot, dry spells. The variety matters for how slowly it bolts and how hardy it is.

What Scotland means for the choice

Spinach does best at 15–20°C and needs fertile soil that doesn't dry out, which suits a wet climate. Cold or hot, dry conditions can both make it bolt, so a cold spring isn't a safeguard the way it is for some crops. Sow in light shade in warm weather to keep it cooler, and water regularly. Hardy varieties sown in late summer to early autumn crop in autumn or early spring, but plants need to be well established before winter sets in, and for overwinteringKeeping a plant alive and intact through the cold months, whether left outdoors, moved under cover, or stored dormant. Full definition → it's important to choose a hardy variety. Mikado carries the highest hardiness ratingThe RHS's H1a–H7 scale for how much cold a plant can survive outdoors, H1a being tender indoor-only and H7 hardy anywhere in the UK. Full definition → of the six. The spinach growing guide covers sowing dates and protection.

Mikado, Missouri, Medania, Amazon and Apollo hold the RHS Award of Garden Merit (AGMThe RHS's Award of Garden Merit: a UK-wide trials award for reliable performance, not a Scotland-specific recommendation. Full definition →). Lazio doesn't. H5 is hardy through most of the UK in a severe winter, and H2 means tolerant of low temperatures but not a hard frost.

Mikado

Mikado is a leafy oriental spinach with an upright habitA plant's characteristic shape and manner of growth, such as upright, spreading, creeping or bushy. Full definition →, large, pointed dark green leaves and long stems with side shoots, which give a continuous harvest. It's slow to bolt and has a hardiness rating of H5, a clear step above the other five.

Missouri, Medania, Apollo and Amazon

Missouri is fast-growing, tasty, slow to bolt and ideal for quick crops in containers, as baby or mature leaves. Medania and Apollo are relatively slow growers with good yields of rounded, slightly blistered leaves, and both are slow to bolt. Apollo also shows some resistance to spinach downy mildew.Amazon is a vigorous grower with rounded, glossy, fairly smooth, dark green leaves, and is resistant to downy mildew and bolting.

Lazio

Lazio is a reliable, high-yielding grower with smooth, rounded, dark green leaves of good flavour. It makes no claim to resist bolting, and it doesn't hold the AGM.

Which one for your situation

• Most gardens, or an autumn sowing for the hardiest crop: Mikado.
• Pots and containers: Missouri.
• A damp garden where downy mildew is a worry: Amazon, which is resistant, or Apollo, which has some resistance.
• A reliable, high-yielding crop: Lazio.

Slugs, downy mildew and bolting are the main problems. If spinach keeps bolting, perpetualA strawberry type that produces smaller flushes of fruit continuously through the season, rather than one large crop over a few weeks. Full definition → spinach, a leaf beet, is more tolerant.

Common questions

Sources