Tips for growing spinach in home garden, harvesting sweet plums

Malabar spinach, also called climbing spinach, is an unusual but appropriate stand-in for true spinach, especially in the summer when the heat makes it impossible to grow good spinach in the home garden.

Our climbing spinach is the red variety, which is beautiful and vigorous and can climb up to 20’ tall. Harvesting the stem tips with the smallest leaves keeps it shorter and encourages more new stems for later harvests up until the first fall frost.

Our dwarf Mt. Royal plum tree is loaded with dark purple, sweet plums that are ready to harvest. This is the only plum recommended for southern Wisconsin that does not require a second tree to produce good fruit. Put this one on your list for planting next spring.