As the warm weather settles in, some of the cool season veggies may start to bolt. This is when they set flowers in anticipation of setting seed. Spinach is one of the veggies that for us, starts to bolt as soon as a few hot days arrive.
When I first notice the flower stalks starting on the Spinach, I will pull them all off in an attempt to keep the plant from bolting. This doesn’t always work (actually, it almost never works for me) and so I need to start harvesting the majority of Spinach leaves.
Leaving some leaves on for fresh eating, I harvest the rest and bring them up to the Kitchen. I really need to get a shade bed started so that I could try planting Spinach and Lettuce in there and that may help them grow for a little longer. Also, come the Fall, in cooler weather, I will plant more Spinach seed and get a Fall Harvest.
I want to keep as much Spinach as possible so after I get the harvest up to the Kitchen, I give it a good rinse to take off any bits of dirt. Then I start tossing it in my big water bath canner and blanch it (let it boil) for 2 minutes.
I then immediately plunge the spinach into cold water and swish it around so it will cool down as quick as possible.
I put it in my Salad spinner and give it a good twirl to get it as dry as possible.
I then bag it into Ziplocks. Seal them and toss them in the freezer. I ended up with 2 full ziplocks, one half full ziplock, and left enough fresh so we’ll have lots to eat raw this week in salads, yum!
A lot of vegetables can be frozen this way, just blanch them for 2 or 3 minutes and seal into bags for the freezer. Peas, beans, carrots, all kinds of green can be preserved this way. Blanching is a very quick and very easy way to preserve your vegetables. Give it a try and enjoy your veggies all Winter long.
