Vegetable · Aizoaceae
New Zealand Spinach
Tetragonia tetragonioides
Grow this forgiving heat-loving green and keep gathering tender leaves long after true spinach has given up.
Full sun
Every 4–7 days
50–86°F · 10–30°C
50–70 days
Overview
Just as the summer heat drives true spinach to seed, New Zealand spinach is settling in and coming into its own, so you have a green for the very season that defeats the others. It isn't really a spinach, but an easygoing sprawler from the fig-marigold family, native to the coasts of New Zealand and Australia, where it grows happily wild on dunes and shingle. Cook the thick, soft leaves and you'll find they taste much like the spinach you already love.
The plant likes to spread low and wide, trailing across the soil into a soft mat a few feet across rather than reaching upward, which makes it wonderfully undemanding. It's content where things get hot and dry, and it even shrugs off salty and alkaline soil that would stop most greens cold. Pinch the tender growing tips through the season and the plant thanks you with fresh shoots, keeping your kitchen stocked right up to the first fall frost.
One gentle heads-up before you begin: the raw leaves hold oxalates and saponins, so this is a green to cook rather than heap into a salad. A quick blanch in boiling water and a pour-off of that water turns it into good eating, and that small bit of prep buys you a crop that keeps giving when nothing else will.
Care
The short version: give it full sun and warm soil, with steady water through summer for the best leaves. Feed it once a month with a nitrogen-rich fertilizer, leave it plenty of room to sprawl, and keep picking the tips so fresh growth keeps coming.
Light
Give it full sun for the fullest, most flavorful leaves, though don't fret if you only have partial shade, because it will take that and keep producing. The more light it soaks up, the more tips you'll have to pick.
Water
It brushes off heat and drought once it's settled in, so you have room to relax, but the leaves taste best and stay tender with steady, even moisture through summer. Water every 4 to 7 days, leaning toward the shorter end during a heat wave or in sandy ground.
Soil
Set it into well-drained sandy loam worked through with plenty of organic matter. A pH of 6.5 to 7.5 suits it nicely, and unlike most greens it happily shrugs off alkaline and even salty soil near the coast.
Temperature
This one is a true heat lover, at ease from about 50°F to 86°F (10°C to 30°C) and happiest in the warmth of high summer. Frost is its one weakness, so simply wait for warm soil before planting out.
Humidity
Ordinary outdoor air suits it just fine, somewhere around 40% to 70%, and it truly isn't fussy either way. There's no number here you need to chase or worry over.
Feeding
Keep it fed for steady, leafy growth, since a hungry plant pales and bolts early. A nitrogen-rich fertilizer once a month through the season, roughly 1/4 cup of N per 10 feet of row, does the trick and gently holds off premature flowering.
Pruning
Pruning and harvesting are one and the same happy job here. Cut or pinch the top 4 inches of the growing tips often, and the plant rewards you with tender new shoots and stays productive instead of running to seed.
Size & spacing
Plants stay a modest 12 to 24 inches (30 to 60 cm) tall but spread into a mat 3 to 4 feet (90 to 120 cm) across. Set them about a foot apart within the row and leave roughly 3 feet between rows so the trailing stems have somewhere friendly to run.
When to plant
New Zealand spinach is a warm-season crop with no patience for frost, so let the calendar guide you gently. Start transplants indoors a few weeks ahead, set them out only once the cold has truly passed and the soil has warmed, then keep harvesting young leaves and tips right through the heat of summer until the first fall frost.
Northern hemisphere
Southern hemisphere
Typical months for a temperate climate: start earlier in warm zones, later where spring frosts linger.
- Sow: Start transplants indoors 3-4 weeks before the last spring frost
- Plant: After the last frost when soil is warm; soak the hard seed in water ~24 hours before sowing and plant about 1 in deep
- Harvest: Harvest young leaves and growing tips continually through summer heat until the first fall frost
Hardiness
USDA hardiness zones: 9–11
Temperature: down to -7°C
Troubleshooting
This is a tough, good-natured plant, and most of what goes wrong is either cosmetic or a simple case of hunger. Get to know the few signs below and you'll easily tell the real problems from the ones the plant will happily outgrow on its own.
Leaves turning pale yellow and regrowing slowly after picking
Faded color and slow regrowth after a cutting almost always mean the plant is simply hungry for nitrogen, and a hungry plant tends to bolt and flower ahead of schedule too. The fix is easy and quick: side-dress with a nitrogen fertilizer, around 1/4 cup of N per 10 feet of row each month, and keep the soil evenly moist in between. That gentle monthly feed brings the leaves back to a deep green and keeps your harvest rolling.
Fix:
- Side-dress with a nitrogen fertilizer
- Apply about 1/4 cup N per 10 ft of row monthly
- Keep soil evenly moist between feedings
Tiny round holes nibbled through the young foliage
Take heart if you spot tiny punched holes in the young foliage, because they usually come from chewing beetles, most often flea beetles that hop up onto tender leaves. The damage looks scarier than it is, and a healthy, well-fed plant grows right past it. Slip a floating row cover over your seedlings early, and reach for hand-picking or a treatment only if the holes truly start to overwhelm the fresh growth.
Fix:
- Tolerate minor cosmetic damage; vigorous plants outgrow it
- Use floating row cover over young plants
- Hand-pick or treat only if damage becomes heavy
Stems sprawl and flop across the ground
There's nothing wrong here, because this is simply how the plant likes to grow. New Zealand spinach has a naturally trailing, weak-stemmed habit and settles into a low carpet 2 to 3 feet wide instead of standing tall, and crowding only makes the sprawl heavier. Give each one 12 inches within the row and 3 feet between rows, let the stems wander into open ground, and pinch the tips now and then to coax bushier, fuller branching.
Fix:
- Allow 12 in within rows and 3 ft between rows
- Let stems trail into open ground or train through other vegetation
- Harvest tips to promote bushier branching
Toxicity
This is food, not poison, so there's no cause for worry, just one small thing to keep in mind. The leaves hold natural oxalates and saponins, which is why people cook them instead of eating them raw in quantity, and those same compounds make the raw greens a mild caution for pets and livestock. Cook the leaves for the table and keep big raw helpings away from animals, and everyone comes out just fine.
Toxic to
Cats · Dogs · Horses · Rabbits · Livestock · Birds
Safe for
People
Cats Mild
Don't panic over a curious nibble, since that rarely amounts to much. A cat that works through a lot of the raw, oxalate-rich leaves might drool or get a queasy stomach, and it isn't a listed ASPCA toxin.
Dogs Mild
If a dog wolfs down a big pile of raw leaves, the oxalic acid and saponins can leave it with a mild upset stomach. A small taste here and there usually passes with no trouble at all.
Horses Mild
The soluble oxalates make the raw greens a poor choice in any real quantity for horses, since a steady diet high in oxalates can interfere with how they take up calcium. Rest easy about the odd mouthful, which is unlikely to trouble a healthy animal.
Rabbits Mild
Keep the servings small and you'll be fine. The oxalate load means the raw leaves shouldn't become a staple in a rabbit's diet, though a little mixed in with other greens is usually taken in stride.
Livestock Mild
Grazing animals can manage some without worry, but the oxalic acid mounts up if they feed on large amounts day after day. Think of it as one part of a varied diet rather than the main forage.
Birds Mild
Backyard hens and other birds happily peck at the foliage without any fuss, though it's kindest to offer the raw leaves sparingly because of the oxalates.
People Edible when cooked
Good news for the cook: this is a genuine kitchen green, safe and tasty once you cook it. Blanch the leaves for 1 to 3 minutes and tip out the water to soften the oxalates and saponins, and go gentle on raw amounts if you're prone to kidney stones.
Blanch leaves in boiling water about 1-3 minutes and discard that water before eating to reduce oxalate and saponin levels; avoid eating large amounts raw, particularly for people prone to kidney stones.
Helpline numbers
United States
ASPCA Animal Poison Control: (888) 426-4435 (fee applies)
Poison Control: (800) 222-1222
Canada
Poison Centres: 1-844-764-7669
Varieties
There isn't a great deal to choose between here, since New Zealand spinach is nearly always grown as the plain species. Even so, a name or two still surfaces in the seed catalogs if you go looking.
Maori
You'll see this named selection turn up in extension references, even though nearly all New Zealand spinach is grown simply as the plain, unimproved species.
Common (species type)
This wild-type species is the form most gardeners reach for, since so few named cultivars of the plant have ever been developed.
How to propagate
Starting New Zealand spinach is refreshingly simple, and seed is the way it's always done. The one small trick worth learning is how to nudge that hard seed into sprouting right on time.
SeedEasy
After the last frost when soil is warm, or start indoors 3-4 weeks before the last frost · About 1-3 weeks to germinate (faster if seed is pre-soaked); roughly 50-70 days to first harvest
Seed is all you need, and the one kindness that makes the difference is giving the hard, knobby fruit a soak in water for about 24 hours before you sow. Tuck it roughly an inch deep and thin the seedlings to a foot apart. Be patient for germination in 1 to 3 weeks, sooner if you pre-soaked, and look forward to your first harvest of leaves and tips in about 50 to 70 days.
Myths
New Zealand spinach is just a variety of regular spinach.
The name is a friendly little fib, because the plant sits in the fig-marigold family (Aizoaceae) and shares no kinship with true spinach. It simply steps in as a heat-tolerant summer stand-in that keeps cropping long after real spinach has bolted and quit.
You can munch the raw leaves as freely as lettuce.
Because the leaves carry oxalates and saponins, they aren't a salad-bowl green to pile on by the handful. Blanch them for 1 to 3 minutes and pour off the water before eating, and keep your raw portions on the modest side.
It handles a light frost just like ordinary spinach does.
This one is a tender warm-season crop, and a frost will kill it outright, so there's no gambling with the cold. Wait until the last frost is safely behind you and the soil has warmed before you sow or set out transplants.