Perennial Spinach: 5 Leafy Greens You Plant Once and Pick for Years

There is no such thing as perennial spinach, strictly speaking, but there are five leafy greens that do spinach's job in the kitchen and come back year after year in a cool, wet climate: sea beet, perpetual spinach, Good King Henry, sorrel and Caucasian spinach. Annual spinach bolts in the first warm week of June and needs resowing every few weeks to keep a bed going. These five are planted once, cut from March to November, and come through an Irish or British winter without protection. This guide covers what each one is, how it tastes and cooks, and how to grow it, with the honest notes on the ones that are not quite what the name says.

Short on time? A packet of sea beet seed sown in April gives a bed of tough, spinach-flavoured leaves by July that will still be there in five years.

Why Annual Spinach Bolts

Spinach (Spinacia oleracea) is a long-day plant: once the day length passes about fourteen hours, which in Ireland is around the middle of April, it switches from leaves to flowers, and any stress, heat, drought or a check at transplanting, pushes it faster. In a cool climate the window between the soil warming enough to sow and the days lengthening enough to bolt is about six weeks, which is why a spring sowing gives a fortnight of picking and a bed of flower stems. Autumn sowings do better, but the plant is still dead by the following summer.

The plants below have the opposite habit. They are perennials, or near enough, that treat being cut as the normal state of affairs and regrow from a crown or a root rather than racing to seed. Most of them are also older crops than spinach, which only reached Britain and Ireland in the late Middle Ages. Our perennial vegetables guide puts them alongside the other plant-once crops.

Sea Beet: The Wild Ancestor of Chard and Beetroot

Sea beet (Beta vulgaris subsp. maritima) grows wild along the whole Irish and British coast, at the top of shingle beaches, on sea walls and along the drift line of saltmarshes. It is the plant that every cultivated beet descends from: chard, beetroot, sugar beet and perpetual spinach are all selections from it, made over the last two thousand years. In the wild it is a sprawling perennial to 80 cm with glossy, thick, dark green leaves that taste like spinach with the volume turned up, and a slight saltiness from where it grows.

In a garden it does the same, with bigger leaves. It wants full sun and well-drained soil, tolerates poor ground, wind and salt, and dislikes shade. Sow sea beet seed in April, or plant a sea beet plant in spring, 40 cm apart, and cut leaves from midsummer onwards. Cut out flower stems as they appear in the second year and the plant keeps producing leaves for several years. It is the most spinach-like of the five and the one to start with.

Perpetual Spinach: The Honest Note

Perpetual spinach, also called leaf beet or spinach beet, is a form of chard (Beta vulgaris var. cicla) bred for leaves rather than stems, and it is the one to grow if you want the taste and texture closest to annual spinach. The honest note is that it is not perennial. It is a biennial that grows leaves for its first year and most of the second before flowering, so a perpetual spinach plant gives eighteen months of cut-and-come-again picking, through the winter, and then needs replacing. "Perpetual" means it does not bolt in its first summer, which is more than annual spinach can say.

Grow it in sun or light shade in rich, moist soil, 30 cm apart, and cut the outer leaves a few at a time from eight weeks after planting. Sow or plant a few new ones every spring and you have a bed that never runs out.

Good King Henry: Lincolnshire Asparagus

Good King Henry (Blitum bonus-henricus) is a true perennial, a native of Europe that was grown in cottage gardens for centuries before annual spinach replaced it, and still called Lincolnshire asparagus in the county that kept growing it. In April the young flower shoots are cut at 15 cm and steamed or buttered like asparagus; from May the arrow-shaped leaves are cooked like spinach, and the young seed heads can be eaten too. The flavour raw is bitter, so it is a cooking green, and a good one.

It takes a year to establish and then crops for a decade. Plant Good King Henry in part shade in moist soil, 40 cm apart, and do not pick in its first year. It is one of the few leaf crops that prefers a north facing bed, which makes it a natural for the shady side of a fruit tree; our post on what to plant under a fruit tree shows where it fits.

Sorrel: The Lemon Leaf

Sorrel is a perennial dock with a sharp lemon flavour, and it is picked from March, when little else is, to November. Common sorrel (Rumex acetosa) has long arrow-shaped leaves and the stronger taste; French sorrel (Rumex scutatus) has smaller, rounder leaves and a milder, cleaner acidity, and it is the one for salads. Both make the classic sorrel soup, a sauce for fish and eggs, and a handful wilted into a spinach dish lifts the whole thing.

Sorrel grows anywhere moist in sun or part shade, bolts less in shade, and is one of the easiest perennials from seed: sow French sorrel seed or red-veined sorrel in spring, thin to 30 cm, and cut from the second month. Remove flower stems through summer and divide the clump every three or four years.

Caucasian Spinach: The Climbing One

Caucasian spinach (Hablitzia tamnoides) is the oddest of the five: a hardy perennial climber from the mountain forests of Georgia and Armenia that scrambles 2 to 3 m up a fence or a tree each summer, dies back to the ground in winter, and comes back in March with a flush of spinach-flavoured shoots and leaves that can be picked all season. It likes shade and cool, moist soil, which is why it suits a cool climate so well and why it has a devoted following among perennial vegetable growers. We grow it in small numbers and it is not always listed; ask if you want one.

How the Five Compare

• Sea beet: true perennial, 4 to 6 years; full sun; strong spinach flavour; leaves June to November; cooked or raw when young.

• Perpetual spinach: biennial, 18 months; sun or light shade; mild, closest to spinach; leaves all year including winter; cooked or raw.

• Good King Henry: true perennial, 10 years; part shade; shoots like asparagus in April, leaves like spinach, bitter raw; cooked only.

• Sorrel: true perennial, 5 years then divide; sun or part shade; lemon-sharp; leaves March to November; raw in small amounts, cooked in soups and sauces.

• Caucasian spinach: true perennial climber, decades; shade; mild spinach; shoots March, leaves to October; cooked or raw.

Growing Perennial Greens

All five want soil improved with compost and a position they can hold for years, so plant them at the edge of a bed or in a strip of their own rather than in the annual rotation. Sow sea beet and sorrel in April where they are to grow, or raise them in modules; plant Good King Henry, perpetual spinach and Caucasian spinach as plants in spring or early autumn. Space them 30 to 40 cm apart, water through the first summer, and mulch each spring.

Pick the outer leaves a few at a time from each plant rather than stripping it, so the crown keeps growing. Cut flower stems out as they appear, because a flowering plant stops making leaves and sorrel in particular goes bitter. In November the beet family and Good King Henry carry on through the winter; sorrel and Caucasian spinach die down and return in March. Every three or four years, lift and divide the clumps in spring.

In the Kitchen

Treat all five as cooking greens first. Wilt them in butter with garlic, fold them into omelettes, curries and pasta, or make them into soup; sea beet and Good King Henry need a few minutes longer than spinach because the leaves are thicker. Young leaves of sea beet, perpetual spinach and French sorrel go into salads raw. Like spinach and rhubarb, sorrel and the beet family contain oxalic acid, so they belong in a varied diet rather than in a daily bowl, and a knob of butter or a splash of cream rounds off the sharpness in all of them. For the free alternative, our nettle soup post covers the perennial green that plants itself.

FAQ: Perennial Spinach

Is there a perennial spinach? Not a true one, but five leafy greens do the same job and come back for years: sea beet, Good King Henry, sorrel and Caucasian spinach are true perennials, and perpetual spinach is a biennial that gives eighteen months of leaves. All five grow in Ireland, the UK and similar cool climates without protection.

Is perpetual spinach really perennial? No. It is a biennial leaf beet that crops for about eighteen months, including through its first winter, and then flowers. It earns the name by not bolting in its first summer, which annual spinach does. Plant a few new ones each spring to keep a bed going.

Can you eat sea beet raw? Yes, when the leaves are young and small, in salads, where the flavour is like strong spinach with a hint of salt. Larger leaves are better cooked, as they are thicker than spinach and need a few minutes in the pan.

What does Good King Henry taste like? Cooked, like a slightly earthier spinach; the April shoots taste like a cross between asparagus and broccoli. Raw it is bitter, so it is a cooking green. It was a standard cottage garden vegetable for centuries and crops for ten years from a single planting.

Does sorrel come back every year? Yes. Sorrel is a hardy perennial that dies back in winter and returns in March, often the first green leaf in the garden. Remove the flower stems in summer to keep the leaves coming, and divide the clump every three or four years to keep it vigorous.

A Spinach Bed You Plant Once

Earthling Plants grows sea beet, perpetual spinach, Good King Henry and sorrel at our nursery in Co. Wicklow, as plants and as seed, and ships across Ireland, the UK and the EU. A 2 m strip with two sea beet, two perpetual spinach, a Good King Henry at the shady end and a sorrel at the sunny end will give leaves eleven months of the year from one planting. If you still want annual spinach for its tenderness, our spinach guide covers the sowings that bolt least.

Related reading: Perennial vegetables for Irish gardens · How to grow spinach from seed · How to grow kale from seed