Shrinking Spinach

[Marb67]

Thanks but I don't think heat is the problem as they like it cool. Perhaps at night it might help maybe.

[roitelet]

Just a thought Marb, is your bes too shady?

[Marb67]

Not at all. It gets shade and sun. Spinach likes shade.

[veggiechicken]

Is it nibbled?

No bite marks as far as I have seen.

Well obviously there seems to be something wrong because it's going yellow and even smaller. Other seedlings taking an eternity to grow. Are they always this slow ?
[ATTACH=CONFIG]64297[/ATTACH]

Something has nibbled that one!

[Marb67]

But would that make it go smaller and yellow V Chicken ?

[veggiechicken]

Maybe the "thing" is nibbling the roots That would make them go yellow and lose the will to live.
Can you lift one and see what the roots are like?

[Jungle Jane]

Leaf cutter bees make circular patterns like that in the leaf. Does the soil have enough nitrogen,did you just harvest something & plant the spinach? Or have you added BFB recently or anything?

[Marb67]

It's got some BFB and chicken manure pellets lightly in the soil. The other spinach are much better, just this one plant that has stumped me. I don't like not knowing what went wrong so I can avoid in the future.

[Marb67]

Well weeks on and as you see no progress. One has clearly become bubbly and distorted but nothing to pick. One has almost gone to nothing. it was always sickly yellow. New seedlings have not all come up and the ones that have do not grow bigger. I cover them with mesh netting to keep them cool and dappled as wella s protected from birds.

Another one to give up with I think

[Snoop Puss]

Crumbs, Marb. I've been looking at the threads you've started recently. All you ever seem to have is plant plagues and pestilence. I hope something is growing well for you.

My spinach is distinctly blistered, but I think some varieties do that naturally. Still tastes good, just needs a bit more vigorous washing.

[Marb67]

Here is an update. I have sown some more but they are excruciatingly slow to germinate, even in this warmth. The plants are equally slow growing and produce tightly distorted leaves. I always thought spinnach grew lush, big leaves but not so. On the whole, a pretty poor show. Would a load more chicken manure pellets help ?

[roitelet]

I wouldn't add any more fertilizer, it could be that as you are square foot gardening the soil is too rich and the poor little plants are over fed. What did you fill your bed with?

[CaraFlower]

In a few of your pictures your soil does seem dark with a greenish (mould?) tinge, which would indicate it's quite wet with limited air flow. How that relates to spinach I am not sure, but plants generally don't like environments lacking oxygen and drainage. So it might help if the soil was opened up a bit.

[bearded bloke]

It does seem that you might be 'killing them with kindness' Marb, more things flourish in under fertilised soil than over, that coupled with a lack of air movement could be the answers to a lot of your problems

[Marb67]

The air flow could be caused by having some netting over them (the red type you get from bags of logs) because of birds like pigions and sparrows pecking the leaf as they often do so no choice about that. Also, spinnach like damp, cool conditions (or so I read) so not sure what to do.