Greens & herbs
Malabar / NZ spinach
The hot-weather spinach substitute; owns the summer gap.
- Outside
- Direct Apr, after frost
- Where
- Trellis for Malabar; NZ sprawls
- Sun
- Full sun; heat is the point
- Water
- Deep soak through the heat; steady for tender tips
- Harvest
- Jun to Sep, straight through the gap
Care
- Water
- Both drink hard through July and August, the months they were planted for: a deep soak about weekly in the heat and more in a wave, toward the county's 1 to 2 inch August target. New Zealand shrugs off a dry stretch but toughens; Malabar wants it steady, and steady is what keeps the tips tender.
- Sow
- Direct sow once frost is past: April here, well clear of the March 15 date and into warm soil. Malabar runs a quarter inch down at the foot of a trellis, thinned to about 6 inches; New Zealand goes half an inch down with a foot to sprawl, its hard seed soaked overnight first.
- Feed
- Compost at planting for both. New Zealand answers a fish and seaweed drink every couple of weeks with lush growth; Malabar gets by on far less. Hold all feeding through the July-August heat, the county's stop-feeding stretch, then resume if the stand pales.
- Ready
- Pick by the tip on both, a handful of stem ends and young leaves every few days; the steady pinching forces branches and keeps the new growth soft. This is the one green producing straight through the mid-June to early September gap, and it fills it.
- Trouble
- Almost nothing bothers either one. The real failure is planting early: both are true tropicals that sulk in cool soil, so give April ground time to warm even after the frost date has passed, and the plants run themselves from there.
In a bag?
- Yes
- Up to a 10–15 gal bag.
- Water
- Daily through summer and twice a day in a heat wave, water until it runs from the drainage holes; give the bag afternoon shade and set it on soil rather than a hot deck.
- Feed
- Top-dress New Zealand monthly with the fortnightly fish and seaweed drink; Malabar still wants little. Hold feed when days top 90F.
- Sow
- One Malabar up a trellis, or one New Zealand left to spill over the rim, per big bag. This is the one summer green a patio bag can honestly hold, at the top of the size range with the water rules kept.
Malabar climbs and New Zealand sprawls, and both take the summer slot true spinach cannot hold: sown in April, producing straight through the heat gap.
Growing
The state greens sheet organizes the whole category around one sentence: summer heat and long days make spinach bolt, and Malabar and New Zealand spinach are the named hot-weather substitutes that tolerate high temperatures. Killeen takes that literally and gives them the slot nobody else wants: sown in April once frost is past, they start slow through the spring and hit stride exactly as the mid-June gap opens, producing through the weeks when the salad garden stands empty. Neither bolts, which is the point of the hiring. Malabar wants a trellis and real heat before it moves; New Zealand sprawls into a thick mat and could not care less. Pick the tips and they keep coming until the fall rounds take over.
Varieties
No Texas source names a strain of either, so the packets stay generic: seed sold plainly as Malabar or as New Zealand spinach is the standard, and the plants behave alike.
In the kitchen
Cooked, both pass for spinach without apology, which is the job description. Raw Malabar is juicy and slightly slick and splits opinion; the pan settles it. They hold the cooked-greens slot from June to September, then hand it back as the fall sowings come up.