Grow Your Own Beet Spinach

Lesson 5: Preventing Beet Spinach Diseases

Keep on Picking
Once beet spinach plants are producing leaves on a regular basis, your main challenge might well turn out to be harvesting them fast enough! But don't be tempted to leave older leaves unpicked. Regular picking encourages vigorous growth. One reason many gardeners choose to grow beet spinach instead of true varieties is because it's far less prone to disease. Slugs can be a nuisance with younger plants (see lessons 2 and 3 for slug-busting tips) but beet spinach is generally only vulnerable to two diseases. And the good news is that you can reduce this vulnerability by good growing practices.

Spot Checks
Leaf spot is a fungus that attacks beet spinach, brassicas and beetroot. Older leaves develop round, brown spots that often wither completely, forming holes. A wet summer tends to make beet spinach more susceptible to this unsightly and destructive fungus. You can't do much about the weather but you can influence the other main cause of leaf spot: inadequate thinning. Overcrowding is a no-no if you want nice, clean spinach leaves. Of course, picking spinach leaves while they're still relatively young is another way of reducing the chance of leaf spot attack.

Rough Patches
Beet spinach can also be vulnerable to downy mildew, a disease more common in true spinach. Yellow patches form on the upper leaf surface and purple mould grows below. As with leaf spot, wet, chilly weather is a warning sign that problems could be on the way. And, in another echo of leaf spot, downy mildew is also more likely if you haven't thinned the crop properly. If your crop is attacked by either downy mildew or leaf spot, remove the affected leaves immediately and destroy them. But prevention is far better than cure, so keep an eye on your plant spacing.

Pic: GAP Photos/John Glover