New Zealand Spinach

Regular spinach (Spinacia oleracea) bolts in summer heat, which creates a productivity gap in warm-climate gardens from June through August. New Zealand spinach fills that gap. It’s not a true spinach - it’s a separate plant in a different family - but the young tips and leaves taste similar to spinach and hold up to the same cooking applications. It thrives at temperatures that kill regular spinach, grows as a ground-covering vine, and produces continuously throughout the summer if you harvest consistently.

At specialty stores and CSAs it sells for $3-5/lb when available at all. Most gardeners grow it alongside regular spinach to maintain continuous greens production through the entire season.

What it actually is

Tetragonia tetragonioides is in the family Aizoaceae (ice plant family), native to coastal areas of New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and South America. Captain Cook’s crew ate it as an antiscurvy green during the Endeavour expedition; Banks brought seeds back to England in 1771, and it entered European gardens from there.

The plant is a sprawling ground cover rather than an upright plant. Leaves are triangular, slightly succulent and fleshy, 1-3 inches across. Stems spread 2-4 feet outward from the planting site, rooting at nodes. Only the tender growing tips (4-6 inches) are harvested - the older stems and leaves become fibrous.

It is not a spinach. The taste is similar - mild, slightly earthy, with some of the same minerality - but the oxalate content is different, the nutritional profile is different, and the growing behavior is completely different. Don’t substitute 1:1 in raw salads without testing first; cooked, it’s essentially interchangeable in most applications.

Characteristic	New Zealand spinach	True spinach
Family	Aizoaceae	Amaranthaceae
Season	Summer (heat-tolerant)	Spring/fall (cool-season)
Bolting	Does not bolt in heat	Bolts at 75°F+
Harvest method	Tips continuously	Whole plant or cut leaves
Raw texture	Slightly succulent	Tender
Cooked texture	Similar to spinach	Similar to NZ spinach

The ROI case

New Zealand spinach’s value is primarily the season extension it provides. Three plants can maintain steady tip production through summer months when fresh cooked greens from the garden are otherwise unavailable.

Planting	Plants	Yield (seasonal)	Value @$4/lb	Seed cost	Net
3-plant patch	3	4-7 lb	$16-28	$1.25*	$14.75-26.75
6-plant row	6	8-14 lb	$32-56	$2.49	$29.51-53.51

*Estimated from $2.49 packet.

The non-financial value - having fresh cooked greens through July and August - is what drives most gardeners to grow it. Paired with regular spinach (spring and fall), it closes the summer gap.

Growing requirements

Timing: sow after last frost when soil is at least 60°F. New Zealand spinach doesn’t tolerate frost and germinates poorly in cold soil. In zones 7-11, it can be treated as a succession crop through summer; in zones 5-6, it fills the midsummer gap and runs until fall frost.

Seed germination: the seeds have a hard coat and germinate slowly without treatment. Soak seeds in warm water for 12-24 hours before planting, or nick the seed coat gently with a file or sandpaper. Germination without treatment takes 2-3 weeks; pre-soaked seeds germinate in 7-14 days.

Spacing: plants spread wide. Space 18-24 inches apart to allow lateral spread. In practice, three plants in a 4-foot square produce adequate continuous harvest.

Direct sow: 1/2 inch deep, after soil is warm. No indoor start needed in most zones.

Harvesting to maintain production: the key technique. Harvest the growing tips - the last 4-6 inches of each shoot including the leaves - every 5-7 days. Each harvested tip branches into 2-3 new tips, creating exponential production over the season. If you stop harvesting for 2-3 weeks, the plant doesn’t bolt (unlike regular spinach) but the older growth becomes fibrous.

No succession planting needed: one planting in late spring provides harvest through October in most zones.

What goes wrong

Slow germination without seed treatment: the most common first-year frustration. Plant looks dead for two weeks, then germinates erratically. Pre-soaking solves this.

Bitter or astringent flavor: NZ spinach contains calcium oxalate, like regular spinach but in different concentration. Blanching in salted water for 1 minute before using in most preparations removes most bitterness. Young tips eaten raw are fine; older leaves can be astringent.

Leggy plants with few harvestable tips: not harvesting frequently enough. The more you harvest, the more tips the plant produces. Harvest every 5-7 days rather than waiting for large quantities to accumulate.

Spreading too far: the vine nature of NZ spinach means it spreads into adjacent beds. Edge it like a ground cover, or train stems back toward the center of the planting.

Harvest and use

Harvest the tender growing tips - the last 4-6 inches of each stem including the small leaves at the tip. Avoid taking thick, older stems; these are woody and unpleasant. The yield from a mature plant looks modest per harvest but accumulates significantly over a season.

Preparing: blanch briefly (1 minute) in salted boiling water before using in cooked preparations. This removes astringency and pre-shrinks the volume. Fresh young tips can be used raw in small quantities.

Core preparations:

• Sautéed with garlic (spinach-style): blanch tips 1 minute, drain, then sauté in olive oil with minced garlic and salt. Finish with lemon juice. Indistinguishable from cooked spinach in this preparation.

• In frittata or quiche: blanch, chop, use as a spinach substitute. Holds together well when baked.

• Wilted in pasta: add blanched tips to hot pasta with olive oil, parmesan, and pine nuts. Summer spinach pasta when regular spinach isn’t available.

• In soup and dal: adds body and nutrition to legume soups. Stir in during the last 10 minutes of cooking; it wilts quickly.

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Related reading: Spinach - cool-season counterpart; Malabar Spinach - another summer heat-tolerant green